A child has a great turn for languages (his grandfather was the master

of nine); the little fellow “lisps in Latin,” learns his “_mensa_” from

his nurse, knows his declensions before he is five. What line is open

to the mother who sees such an endowment in her child? First, let him

use it; let him learn his declensions, and whatever else he takes to

without the least sign of effort. Probably the Latin case-endings come

as easily and pleasantly to his ear as does “See-saw, Margery Daw,” to

the ordinary child, though no doubt “Margery Daw” is the wholesomer

kind of thing. Let him do just so much as he takes to of his own

accord; but never urge, never applaud, never show him off. Next, let

words convey ideas as he is able to bear them. Buttercup, primrose,

dandelion, magpie, each tells its own tale; daisy is day’s-eye, opening

with the sun, and closing when he sets--

“That well by reason it men callen may

The daïsie, or else the eye of day.”

Let him feel that the common words we use without a thought are

beautiful, full of story and interest. It is a great thing that the

child should get the _ideas_ proper to the qualities inherent in him.

An idea fitly put is taken in without effort, and, once in, ideas

behave like living creatures--they feed, grow, and multiply. Next,

provide him with some one delightful change of thought, that is, with

work and ideas altogether apart from his bent for languages. Let him

know, with friendly intimacy, every out-of-door object that comes in

his way--the red-start, the rose-chaffer, the ways of the caddis-worm,

forest trees, field flowers--all natural objects, common and curious,

near his home. No other knowledge is so delightful; not natural

science, but common acquaintance with natural objects.

Or, again, some one remarks that all our great inventors have in their

youth handled material--clay, wood, iron, brass, pigments. Let him work

in material. To provide a child with delightful resources on lines

opposed to his natural bent is the one way of keeping a quite sane mind

in the presence of an absorbing pursuit.

At the same time, change of occupation is not rest: if a man ply a

machine, now with his foot, and now with his hand, the foot or the

hand rests, but the man does not. A game of romps (better, so far as

mere rest goes, than games with laws and competitions), nonsense talk,

a fairy tale, or to lie on his back in the sunshine, should rest the

child, and of such as these he should have his fill.

This, speaking broadly, is the _rationale_ of the matter:--just as

actually as we sew or write through the instrumentality of the hand, so

the child learns, thinks, feels, by means of a material organ--the very

delicate nervous tissue of the cerebrum. Now this tissue is constantly

and rapidly wearing away. The more it is used, whether in the way of

mental effort or emotional excitement, the more it wears away. Happily,

rapid new growth replaces the waste, wherefore, work and consequent

waste of tissue are necessary. But let the waste get ahead of the

gain, and lasting mischief happens. Therefore never let the child’s

brain-work exceed his chances of reparation, whether such work come in

the way of too hard lessons, or of the excitement attending childish

dissipations. Another plea for abundant rest:--one thing at a time, and

that done well, appears to be Nature’s rule; and his hours of rest and

play are the hours of the child’s physical growth--witness the stunted

appearance of children who are allowed to live in a whirl of small

excitements.

A word more as to the necessity of _change of thought_ for the child

who has a distinct bent. The brain tissue not only wastes with work,

but, so to speak, wastes locally. We all know how done up we are

after giving our minds for a few hours or days to any one subject,

whether anxious or joyous: we are glad at last to escape from the

engrossing thought, and find it a weariness when it returns upon

us. It would appear that, set up the continuous working of certain

ideas, and a certain tract of the brain substance is, as it were, worn

out and weakened with the constant traffic in these ideas. And this

is of more consequence when the ideas are moral than when they are

merely intellectual. Hamlet’s thoughts play continuously round a few

distressing facts; he becomes morbid, not entirely sane; in a word, he

is _eccentric_. Now, possibly, eccentricity is a danger against which

the parents of well-descended children must be on the watch. These are

born with strong tendencies to certain qualities and ways of thinking.

Their bringing up tends to accentuate their qualities; the balance

between these and other qualities is lost, and they become eccentric

persons. Mr. Matthew Arnold writes down the life and the work of a

great poet as _ineffectual_; and this is, often enough, the verdict

passed upon the eccentric. Whatever force of genius and of character,

whatever lovely moral traits they may have, the world will not take

them as guides for good, unless they do as others do in things lawful

and expedient; and truly there is a broad margin for originality

in declining to hunt with the hounds in things neither lawful nor

expedient.

Now, practically, what is the mother’s course who notices in her most

promising child little traits of oddity? He does not care much for

games, does not get on well with the rest, has some little den of his

own where he ruminates. Poor little fellow! he wants a confidante

badly; most likely he has tried nurse and brothers and sisters, to

no purpose. If this go on, he will grow up with the idea that nobody

wants him, nobody understands him, will take his slice of life and

eat it (with a snarl) all by himself. But if his mother have tact

enough to get at him, she will preserve for the world one of its

saving characters. Depend upon it there is something at work in the

child--genius, humanity, poetry, ambition, pride of family. It is

that he wants outlet and exercise for an inherited trait almost too

big for his childish soul. Rosa Bonheur was observed to be a restless

child whose little shoes of life were a misfit: lessons did not please

her, and play did not please her; and her _artist_ father hit on the

notion of soothing the child’s divine discontent by--apprenticing

her to a needlewoman! Happily she broke her bonds, and we have her

pictures. In the case of pride of birth, it is well that the child

should be brought face to face and heart to heart with the “great

humility” of our Pattern. But that being done, this sense of family

distinction is a wonderful lever to raise the little world of the

child’s nature. _Noblesse oblige._ He must needs add honour and not

dishonour to a distinguished family. I know of a little boy who bears

two distinguished family names--Browning-Newton, let us say. He goes

to a preparatory school, where it is the custom to put the names of

defaulters on the blackboard. By-and-by, his little brother went to

school too, and the bigger boy’s exordium was:--“We’ll _never_ let two

such names as ours be stuck up on the blackboard!”

Amongst the immediate causes of eccentricity is the dreariness of daily

living, the sense of which falls upon us all at times, and often with

deadly weight upon the more finely strung and highly gifted. “Oh, dear!

I wish I was in Jupiter!” sighed a small urchin who had already used

up this planet. It rests with the parents to see that the dreariness

of a motiveless life does not settle, sooner or later, on any one of

their children. We are made with a yearning for the “fearful joy” of

passion; and if this do not come to us in lawful ways, we look for it

in eccentric, or worse, in illegitimate courses. The mother, to whom

her child is as an open book, must find a vent for the restless working

of his nature--the more apt to be troubled by--

“The burden of the mystery,

The heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world”--

the more finely he is himself organised. Fill him with the enthusiasm

of humanity. Whatever gifts he has, let them be cultivated as “gifts

for men.” “The thing best worth living for is _to be of use_,” was well

said lately by a thinker who has left us. The child into whose notion

of life that idea is fitted will not grow up to find time heavy on

his hands. The life blessed with an enthusiasm will not be dull; but

a weight must go into the opposite scale to balance even the noblest

enthusiasm. As we have said, open for him some door of natural science,

some way of mechanical skill; in a word, give the child an absorbing

pursuit and a fascinating hobby, and you need not fear eccentric or

unworthy developments. It seems well to dwell at length on this

subject of eccentricity, because the world loses a great deal by its

splendid failures, the beautiful human beings who through one sort of

eccentricity or another become ineffectual for the raising of the rest

of us.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] “Vom Vater hab’ ich die Statur,

Des Lebens ernstes Führen;

Vom Mütterchen die Frohnatur,

Und Lust zu fabuliren.”

CHAPTER IX

_THE CULTURE OF CHARACTER_

PART II

Suppose the parent see that the formation of character is the ultimate

object of education; see, too, that character is, in the rough, the

inherited tendencies of the child, modified by his surroundings, but

that character may be debased or ennobled by education; that it is

the parents’ part to distinguish the first faint budding of family

traits--to greet every fine trait as the highest sort of family

possession to be nourished and tended with care; to keep up at the

same time the balance of qualities by bringing forward that which is

of little account--the more so when they must deliver their child from

eccentricity, pitfall to the original and forceful nature;--suppose

they have taken all this into the _rôle_ of their duties, there yet

remains much for parents to do.

We are open to what the French call the defects of our qualities; and

as ill weeds grow apace, the defects of a fine character may well choke

out the graces. A little maiden loves with the passion and devotion of

a woman, but she is exacting of return, and jealous of intrusion, even

with her mother. A boy is ambitious; he will be leader in the nursery,

and his lead is wholesome for the rest; but there is the pugnacious

little brother who will not “follow my leader,” and the two can hardly

live in the same rooms. The able boy is a tyrant when his will is

crossed. There is the timid, affectionate little maid who will even

tell a fib to shield her sister; and there is the high-spirited girl

who never lies, but who does, now and then, bully; and so on, without

end. What is the parents’ part here? To magnify the quality; make the

child feel that he or she has a virtue to guard--a _family_ possession,

and, at the same time, a gift from above. A little simple reasonable

teaching may help. But let us beware of much talk. “Have you _quite_

finished, mother?” said a bright little girl of five in the most polite

way in the world. She had listened long to her mother’s sermonising,

and had many things on hand. A wise word here and there may be of use,

but much more may be done by carefully hindering each “defect of its

quality” from coming into play. Give the ill weeds no room to grow.

Then, again, the defect may often be reclaimed and turned back to feed

the quality itself. The ambitious boy’s love of power may be worked

into a desire to win by love his restive little brother. The passion of

the loving girl may be made to include all whom her mother loves.

There is another aspect of the subject of heredity and the duties it

entails. As the child of long lineage may well inherit much of what

was best in his ancestors--fine physique, clear intellect, high moral

worth--so also he has his risks. As some one puts it, not all the women

have been brave, nor all the men chaste. We know how the tendency to

certain forms of disease runs in families. Temper and temperament,

moral and physical nature alike, may come down with a taint. An unhappy

child may, by some odd freak of nature, appear to have left out the

good and taken into him only the unworthy. What can the parents do

in such a case? They may not _re_form him--perhaps that is beyond

human skill and care, once he has become all that is possible to his

nature--but _transform_ him, so that the being he was calculated to

become never develops at all; but another being comes to light blest

with every grace of which he had only the defect. This brings us to a

beneficent law of nature, which underlies the whole subject of early

training, and especially so this case of the child whose mother must

bring him forth a second time into a life of beauty and harmony. To put

it in an old form of words--the words of Thomas à Kempis--what seems

to me the fundamental law of education is no more than this: “Habit

is driven out by habit.” People have always known that “Use is second

nature,” but the reason why, and the scope of the saying, these are

discoveries of recent days.

A child has an odious custom, so constant, that it is his quality, will

be his _character_ if you let him alone; he is spiteful, he is sly,

he is sullen. No one is to blame for it; it was born in him. What are

you to do with such inveterate habit of nature? Just this; treat it as

a bad _habit_, and set up the opposite good habit. Henry is more than

mischievous; he is a malicious little boy. There are always tears in

the nursery, because, with “pinches, nips, and bobs,” he is making some

child wretched. Even his pets are not safe; he has done his canary to

death by poking at it with a stick through the bars of its cage; howls

from his dog, screeches from his cat, betray him in some vicious trick.

He makes fearful faces at his timid little sister; sets traps with

string for the housemaid with her water-cans to fall over; there is no

end to the malicious tricks, beyond the mere savagery of untrained

boyhood, which come to his mother’s ear. What is to be done? “Oh, he

will grow out of it!” say the more hopeful who pin their faith to time.

But many an experienced mother will say, “You can’t cure him; what is

in will out, and he will be a pest to society all his life.” Yet the

child may be cured in a month if the mother will set herself to the

task with both hands and set purpose; at any rate, the cure may be well

begun, and that is half done.

Let the month of treatment be a deliciously happy month to him, he

living all the time in the sunshine of his mother’s smile. Let him not

be left to himself to meditate or carry out ugly pranks. Let him feel

himself always under a watchful, loving, and _approving eye_. Keep him

happily occupied, well amused. All this, to break the old custom which

is assuredly broken when a certain length of time goes by without its

repetition. But one habit drives out another. Lay new lines in the old

place. Open avenues of kindness for him. Let him enjoy, daily, hourly,

the pleasure of pleasing. Get him into the way of making little plots

for the pleasure of the rest--a plaything of his contriving, a dish of

strawberries of his gathering, shadow rabbits to amuse the baby; take

him on kind errands to poor neighbours, carrying and giving of his own.

For a whole month the child’s whole heart is flowing out in deeds and

schemes and thoughts of loving-kindness, and the ingenuity which spent

itself in malicious tricks becomes an acquisition to his family when

his devices are benevolent. Yes; but where is his mother to get time in

these encroaching days to put Henry under special treatment? She has

other children and other duties, and simply cannot give herself up for

a month or a week to one child. If the boy were ill, in danger, would

she find time for him then? Would not other duties go to the wall, and

leave her little son, for the time, her chief object in life? Now here

is a point all parents are not enough awake to--that mental and moral

ailments require prompt, purposeful, curative treatment, to which the

parents must devote themselves for a short time, just as they would

to a sick child. Neither punishing him nor letting him alone--the two

lines of treatment most in favour--ever cured a child of any moral

evil. If parents recognised the efficacy and the immediate effect of

treatment, they would never allow the spread of ill weeds. For let this

be borne in mind, whatever ugly quality disfigures the child, he is

but as a garden overgrown with weeds, the more prolific the weeds, the

more fertile the soil; he has within him every possibility of beauty of

life and character. Get rid of the weeds and foster the flowers. It is

hardly too much to say that most of the failures in life or character

made by man or woman are due to the happy-go-lucky philosophy of the

parents. They say, “The child is so young; he does not know any better;

but all that will come right as he grows up.” Now, a fault of character

left to itself can do no other than strengthen.

An objection may be raised to this counsel of short and determined

curative treatment. The good results do not last, it is said; a week

or two of neglect, and you lose the ground gained: Henry is as likely

as ever to grow up of the “tiger” order, a Steerforth or a Grandcourt.

Here science comes to help us to cheerful certainty.

There is no more interesting subject of inquiry open just now than

that of the interaction between the thoughts of the mind and the

configuration of the brain. The fair conclusion appears to be that

each is greatly the cause of the other; that the character of the

persistent thoughts actually shapes the cerebrum, while on the

configuration of this organ depends in turn the manner of thoughts we

think. Now, thought is, for the most part, automatic. We think, without

intention or effort, as we have been accustomed to think, just as we

walk or write without any conscious arrangement of muscles. Mozart

could write an overture, laughing all the time at the little jokes his

wife made to keep him awake; to be sure he had thought it out before,

and there it was, ready to be written; but he did not consciously

try for these musical thoughts, they simply came to him in proper

succession. Coleridge thought “Kubla Khan” in his sleep, and wrote it

when he awoke; and, indeed, he might as well have been asleep all the

time for all he had to do with the production of most of his thoughts.

“Over the buttons she falls asleep,

And stitches them on in a dream,”--

is very possible and likely. For one thing which we consciously set

ourselves to think about, a thousand words and acts come from us every

day of their own accord; we don’t think of them at all. But all the

same, only a poet or a musician could thus give forth poetry or music,

and it is the words and acts which come from us without _conscious_

thought which afford the true measure of what we are. Perhaps this is

why such serious weight is attached to our every “idle word”--words

spoken without intention or volition.

We are getting, by degrees, to Henry and his bad habits. Somehow or

other, the nervous tissue of the cerebrum “grows to” the thoughts that

are allowed free course in the mind. _How_, Science hardly ventures to

guess as yet; but, for the sake of illustration, let us imagine that

certain thoughts of the mind run to and fro in the nervous substance of

the cerebrum until they have made a way there: busy traffic in the same

order of thoughts will always be kept up, for there is the easy way for

them to run in. Now, take the child with an inherited tendency to a

resentful temper: he has begun to think resentful thoughts: finds them

easy and gratifying; he goes on; evermore the ugly traffic becomes more

easy and natural, and resentfulness is rapidly becoming _himself_, that

trait in his character which people couple with his name.

But one custom overcomes another. The watchful mother sets up new

tracks in other directions; and she sees to it, that while she is

leading new thoughts through the new way, the old, deeply worn “_way_

of thinking” is quite disused. Now, the cerebrum is in a state of

rapid waste and rapid growth. The new growth takes shape from the

new thoughts: the old is lost in the steady waste, and the child is

_re_formed, physically as well as morally and mentally. That the

nervous tissue of the cerebrum should be thus the _instrument_ of the

mind need not surprise us when we think how the muscles and joints

of the tumbler, the vocal organs of the singer, the finger-ends of

the watchmaker, the palate of the tea-taster, grow to the uses they

are steadily put to; and, much more, both in the case of brain and of

bodily organs, grow to the uses they are _earliest_ put to.

This meets in a wonderful way the case of the parent who sets himself

to cure a moral failing. He sets up the course of new thoughts,

and hinders those of the past, until the _new_ thoughts shall have

become automatic and run of their own accord. All the time a sort of

disintegration is going on in the place that held the disused thoughts;

and here is the parent’s advantage. If the boy return (as, from

inherited tendency, he still may do) to his old habits of thought,

behold there is no more place for them in his physical being; to make a

new place is a work of time, and in this work the parent can overtake

and hinder him without much effort.

Here, indeed, more than anywhere, “Except the Lord build the house,

they labour but in vain that build it;” but surely intelligent

co-operation in this divine work is our bounden duty and service. The

training of the will, the instruction of the conscience, and, so far

as it lies with us, the development of the divine life in the child,

are carried on simultaneously with this training in the habits of a

good life; and these last will carry the child safely over the season

of infirm will, immature conscience, until he is able to take, under

direction from above, the conduct of his life, the moulding of his

character into his own hands. It is a comfort to believe that there is

even a material register of our educational labours being made in the

very substance of the child’s brain; and, certainly, here we have a

note of warning as to the danger of letting ill ways alone in the hope

that all will come right by-and-by.

Some parents may consider all this as heavy hearing; that even to

“think on these things” is enough to take the joy and spontaneousness

out of their sweet relationship; and that, after all, parents’ love and

the grace of God should be sufficient for the bringing up of children.

No one can feel on this subject more sincere humility than those who

have not the honour to be parents; the insight and love with which

parents--mothers most so--are blest, is a divine gift which fills

lookers-on with reverence, even in many a cottage home; but we have

only to observe how many fond parents make foolish children to be

assured that something more is wanted. There are appointed ways, not

always the old paths, but new ones, opened up step by step as we go.

The labour of the mother who sets herself to understand her work is not

increased, but infinitely lightened; and as for life being made heavy

with the thought of these things, once make them our own, and we act

upon them as naturally as upon such knowledge--scientific also--as,

loose your hold of a cup--and it falls. A little painstaking thought

and effort in the first place, and all comes easy.

CHAPTER X

_BIBLE LESSONS_

“The history of England is now reduced to a game at cards,--the

problems of mathematics to puzzles and riddles.... There wants

but one step further, and the Creed and Ten Commandments may

be taught in the same manner, without the necessity of the

grave face, deliberate tone of recital, and devout attention

hitherto exacted from the well-governed childhood of this

realm.”--_Waverley._

That parents should make over the religious education of their children

to a Sunday-school is, no doubt, as indefensible as if they sent them

for their meals to a table maintained by the public bounty. We “at

home” plead “not guilty” to this particular count. Our Sunday-schools

are used by those toil-worn and little-learned parents who are willing

to accept at the hands of the more leisured classes this service of the

religious teaching of their children. That is, the Sunday-school is,

at present, a necessary evil, an acknowledgment that there are parents

so hard pressed that they are unable for their first duty. Here we

have the theory of the Sunday-school--the parents who can, teach their

children at home on Sunday, and substitutes step in to act for those

who can not. It is upon this delightful theory of the Sunday-school

that a clergyman[7] at the Antipodes has taken action. Never does

it appear to occur to him that the members of the upper and middle

classes do not need to be definitely and regularly instructed in

religion--“from a child.” His contention is, only, that such children

should not be taught at Sunday-school, but at home, and by their

parents; and the main object of his parochial “Parents’ Union” is to

help parents in this work. These are some of the rules:--

1. The object of the Union shall be to unite, strengthen, and assist

fathers and mothers in the discharge of their parental duties.

2. Members shall be pledged, by the fact of their joining, to supervise

the education of their own children, and to urge the responsibility of

the parental relationship upon other parents.

3. Lesson sketches shall be furnished monthly to each family in

connection with the Union.

4. Members shall bring their children to the monthly catechising, and

sit with them, &c., &c.

Probably the “lesson-sketches” are to secure that the children do just

such Bible-lessons at home with their parents on Sunday as they have

hitherto done at the Sunday-school with teachers.

It seems to be contemplated that parents of every class will undertake

their proper duties in this matter, and that the Sunday-school may be

allowed to drop, the clergyman undertaking instead to ascertain, by

means of catechising, that certain work is done month by month.

The scheme seems full of promise. Nothing should do more to strengthen

the bonds of family life than that the children should learn religion

at the lips of their parents; and, to grow up in a church which takes

constant heed of you from baptism or infancy, until, we will not say

confirmation, but through manhood and womanhood, until the end, should

give the right tone to corporate life.

No doubt we have parishes, and even whole denominations, in which the

young people are taken hold of from first to last; but then it is by

clergy, teachers, class leaders, and so on; and all parents do not

regard it as an unmixed blessing that the most serious part of their

children’s training should be undertaken by outsiders. The thing that

seems most worthy of imitation in this Australian movement is, that

parents themselves are recognised as the fit instructors of their

children in the best things, and that they are led to acknowledge some

responsibility to the Church with regard to the instruction they give.

But do we manage these things so well “at home” that we have no

occasion to look about us for hints? It may be in the memories of

some of us, that in May 1889, a Committee of the House of Laymen

for the Province of Canterbury was appointed to examine into the

religious education of the upper and middle classes.[8] The committee

considered that they might obtain a good basis for their investigations

by examining into the religious knowledge of boys entering school.

They sent a paper of inquiries to sixty-two head-masters, most of

whom sent replies; and from these replies the committee were led to

conclude that, “for the most part, the standard of religious education

attained by boys before going to school is far below what might be

hoped or expected; and that even this standard, thus ascertained to

be far too low, is deteriorating; and further, that the chief cause

of deterioration is considered to be the want of home-teaching and

religion.”

Here is matter of grave consideration for us all--for, though the

investigation was conducted by Churchmen, it naturally covered

boys of various denominations attending public and middle-class

schools; the distinctive character of the religious education was

the subject of separate inquiry. No doubt there are many beautiful

exceptions--families brought up in quiet homes in the nurture and

admonition of the Lord; but if it is, as some of us fear, a fact that

there is a tendency among parents of the middle and upper classes to

let the religious education of their children take care of itself, it

is worth while to ask, What is the reason? and, What is the remedy?

Many reasons are assigned for this alleged failure in parental

duty--social claims, the restive temper of the young people and their

impatience of religious teaching, and much else. But these reasons

are inadequate. Parents are, on the whole, very much alive to their

responsibilities; perhaps there has never been a generation more

earnest and conscientious than the young parents of these days. All the

same, these thoughtful young parents do not lay themselves out to teach

their children religion, before all things.

The fact is, our religious life has suffered, and by-and-by our

national character will suffer, for the discredit thrown upon the

Bible by adverse critics. We rightly regard the Bible as the entire

collection of our Sacred Books. We have absolutely nothing to teach

but what we find written therein. But we no longer go to the Bible

with the old confidence: our religion is fading into a sentiment, not

easy to impart; we wait until the young people shall conceive it for

themselves. Meantime, we give them such æsthetic culture as should

tend to develop those needs of the soul that find their satisfaction

in worship. The whole superstructure of “liberal” religious thought is

miserably shaky, and no wonder there is some shrinking from exposing

it to the Ithuriel’s spear of the definite and searching young mind.

For we love this flimsy habitation we have builded. It bears a shadowy

resemblance to the old home of our souls, and we cling to it with a

tender sentiment which the younger generation might not understand.

Are we then unhoused? Undoubtedly we are upon one assumption--that

assumption which it takes a brilliant novelist to put forth in its

naked asperity--“Miracles do not happen.” The educated mind is more

essentially logical than we are apt to suppose. Remove the keystone

of miracle and the arch tumbles about our ears. The ostentatious

veneration for the Person of Christ, as separated from the “mythical”

miraculous element, is, alas! no more than a spurious sentiment toward

a self-evolved conception. Eliminate the “miraculous” and the whole

fabric of Christianity disappears; and not only so, what have we to

do with that older revelation of “the Lord, the Lord, a God full of

compassion and gracious”? Do we say, Nay, we keep this; here is no

miracle; and, of Christ, have we not the inimitable Sermon on the

Mount--sufficient claim on our allegiance? No, we have not; therein

are we taught to pray, to consider the lilies of the field and the

fowls of the air, and to remember that the very hairs of our head are

all numbered. Here we have the doctrine of the personal dealing, the

particular providence of God, which is of the very essence of miracle.

If “miracles do not happen,” it is folly and presumption to expect

in providence and invite in prayer the faintest disturbance of that

course of events which is fixed by inevitable law. The educated mind

is severely logical, though an effort of the will may keep us from

following out our conclusions to the bitter end. What have we left? A

God who, of necessity, can have no personal dealings with you or me,

for such dealings would be of the nature of a miracle: a God, prayer to

whom, in the face of such certainty, becomes blasphemous. How dare we

approach the Highest with requests which, in the nature of things (as

we conceive), it is impossible He should grant?

We cannot pray, and we cannot trust, may be; yet we are not utterly

godless; we can admire, adore, worship, in uttermost humility. But

how? What shall we adore? The Divine Being can be known to us only

through His attributes; He is a God of love and a God of justice; full

of compassion and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.

But these are attributes which can only be conceived of as in action,

from Person to person. How be gracious and merciful unless to a being

in need of grace and mercy? Grant that grace and mercy may modify the

slightest circumstance in a man’s existence, spiritual or temporal,

and you grant the whole question of “miracles”--that is, that it is

possible to God to act otherwise than through such inevitable laws as

we are able to recognise. Refuse to concede “the miraculous element,”

and the Shepherd of Israel has departed from our midst; we are left

orphaned in a world undone.

Such and so great are the issues of that question of “miracle” with

which we are fond of dallying, with a smile here and a shrug there, and

a special sneer for that story of the swine that ran violently down

a steep place, because we know so much about the dim thoughts of the

brute creation--living under our eyes, indeed, but curiously out of

our ken. Grant the possibility of miracles, that is, of the voluntary

action of a Personal God, and who will venture to assign limits of less

or more?

How long halt we betwixt two opinions?--to the law and to the

testimony. Let us boldly accept the alternative which Hume proposes,

however superciliously. Let it be, that, “no testimony is sufficient

to establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such a kind that its

falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavours

to establish.” Even so. We believe that Christ rose again the third

day and ascended into heaven; or we credit the far more miraculous

hypothesis that “there is no God”; or, anyway, the God of revelation,

in His adorable Personality, has ceased to be for us. There is no

middle way. Natural law, as we understand it, has nothing to do with

these issues; not that the Supreme abrogates His laws, but that our

knowledge of “natural law” is so agonisingly limited and superficial,

that we are incompetent to decide whether a break in the narrow circle,

within which our knowledge is hemmed, is or is not an opening into a

wider circle, where what appears to us as an extraordinary exception

does but exemplify the general rule.

We would not undervalue the solid fruits of Biblical criticism,

even the most adverse. This should be a great gain in the spiritual

life--that, henceforth, a miracle is accredited, not merely by the fact

that it is recorded in the sacred history, but by its essential fitness

with the Divine Character; just as, if we may reverently compare human

things with divine, we say of a friend, “Oh, he would never do that!”

or, “That is just like him.” Tried by this test, how unostentatious,

simple, meekly serviceable are the miracles of Christ; how utterly

divine it is

“To have all power, and be as having none!”

The mind which is saturated with the Gospel story in all its sweet

reasonableness, which has absorbed the more confused and broken

rays wherein the Light of the World is manifested in Old Testament

story, will perhaps be the least tempted to the disloyalty of

“honest doubt;”--for disloyalty to the most close and sacred of all

relationships it is, though we must freely concede that such doubt is

the infirmity of noble minds. Believing that faith comes by hearing,

and hearing by the Word of God, that the man is established in the

Christian faith according as the child has been instructed, the

question of questions for us is, how to secure that the children shall

be well grounded in the Scriptures by their parents, and shall pursue

the study with intelligence, reverence, and delight.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] The Rev. E. Jackson, sometime of Sydney.

[8] See “Report of the Committee of the House of Laymen

for the Province of Canterbury on the Duty of the

Church with regard to the Religious Education of the

Upper and Middle Classes.”--_Nat. Soc. Depository,

Westminster_.

CHAPTER XI

_FAITH AND DUTY_

REVIEWS

I

Education, properly understood, is the science of life, and every

attempt to formulate this science is to be hailed with interest, and

with a measure of gratitude in proportion to its success. Thinking

minds everywhere are engaged in furnishing their quota towards this

great work, in one or another of its aspects, physical, social,

religious. We see at once the importance of every attempt to solve

social problems or problems of faith, as helping us to understand those

“laws of nature” and “ways of men,” the love, and dutiful attitude of

the will towards which Mr. Huxley considers to be the sole practical

outcome of education. We have before us three important works[9] on

these lines. One deals with the problems of “secular” morality from an

American point of view; the second with the whole problem of national

education from a French and “scientific” standpoint. The third is

not professedly an educational work. It deals with “the ways of men,”

but with the ways of men as they are concerned with the ways and will

of God. That is, it deals with the deep-seated springs out of which

are the issues of life. As the true educationalist works from within

outwards, he will probably find much aid in a work whose outlook on

life is from the standpoint of “faith.”

Mr. Felix Adler, in “The Moral Instruction of Children,” undertakes

a by no means easy task in setting himself to solve the problem of

unsectarian moral instruction. He brings unusual qualifications to the

work--a wide outlook, philosophic training, and that catholic love of

literature and knowledge of books which is essential to the teacher of

morals. The work before us is one which should find a place on every

educated parent’s bookshelves, not perhaps to be swallowed whole as a

“complete guide,” but to be studied with careful attention and some

freedom of choice as to which counsel of perfection is worthy to be

acted upon, and which other counsel may be rejected as not fitting in

with that scheme of educational thought which the parent has already

made for himself. Mr. Adler is most seriously handicapped at the

outset. He writes for American schools, in which the first condition of

moral instruction is that it must be unsectarian. This he, rightly or

wrongly, interprets, to exclude all theistic teaching whatever; that

is to say, the child he writes for has no sanctions beyond those he

finds in his own breast. For example: “It is the business of the moral

instructor in the school to deliver to his pupils the subject-matter

of morality, but not to deal with the sanctions of it. He says to the

pupil, ‘Thou shalt not lie.’ He takes it for granted that the pupil

feels the force of this commandment, and acknowledges that he ought

to yield obedience to it. For my part, I should suspect of quibbling

and dishonest intention any boy or girl who would ask me, Why ought I

not to lie? I should hold up before such a child the _ought_ in all

its awful majesty. The right to reason about these matters cannot be

conceded until after the mind has attained a certain maturity.”

Where does the _ought_ get its awful majesty? That there is in the

human breast an infallible sense of “ought” is an error prolific of

much evil. It is a popular idea to-day that it is right to do that

which the doer holds to be right; or, as it is popularly expressed, a

man does all that can be expected of him when he acts according to his

“lights.” Now, a very slight acquaintance with history demonstrates

that every persecution and most outrages, from the Inquisition to

Thuggee, are the outcome of that same majesty of “ought,” as it makes

its voice heard in the breast of an individual or of a community.

To attempt to treat of morals without dealing with the sanctions of

morality is to work from the circumference instead of from the centre.

_Moses, Moses und immer Moses!_ says a German pedagogue of the modern

school, who writes in hot disdain of the old school system, in which

ten or twelve, and, in some of the German States, fifteen or sixteen

hours a week were devoted to Bible-teaching. We in England, and they in

America, also rebel against the Bible as a class-book. Educationalists

say there is so much else to be learned, that this prolonged study

of sacred literature is a grievous waste of time; and many religious

persons, on the other hand, object on the ground that it is not good

to make the Bible common as a class-book. But it is singular that so

few educationalists recognise that the Bible is not a single book,

but a classic literature of wonderful beauty and interest; that,

apart from its Divine sanctions and religious teaching, from all that

we understand by “Revelation,” the Bible, as a mere instrument of

education, is, at the very least as valuable as the classics of Greece

or Rome. Here is poetry, the rhythm of which soothes even the jaded

brain past taking pleasure in any other. Here is history, based on

such broad, clear lines, such dealing of slow and sure and even-handed

justice to the nations, such stories of national sins and national

repentances, that the student realises, as from no other history,

the solidarity of the race, the brotherhood--and, if we may call it

so--the individuality of the nations. Here is philosophy which, of

all the philosophies which have been propounded, is alone adequate

to the interpretation of human life. We say not a word here of that

which is the _raison d’être_ of the Bible--its teaching of religion,

its revelation of God to man; but, to say only one word more, all the

literatures of the world put together utterly fail to give us a system

of ethics, in precept and example, motive and sanction, complete as

that to which we have been born as our common inheritance in the Bible.

For 1700 years, roughly speaking, the Bible has been the school-book of

modern Europe; its teaching, conveyed directly or indirectly, more or

less pure, has been the basis upon which the whole superstructure of

not only religious but ethical and, to some extent, literary training

rested. Now, the Bible as a lesson-book is tabooed; and educationalists

are called upon to produce what shall take its place in the origination

of ideas and the formation of character. This is the task to which Mr.

Adler sets himself; and that he is at all successful is obviously due

to the fact that his own mind is impregnated with the Bible-lore and

the sacred law which he does not feel himself at liberty to propound

to his students. But this prepossession of the author’s makes his work

very helpful and suggestive to parents who desire to take the Bible as

the groundwork and the sanction of that moral teaching which they are

glad to supplement from other sources.

May we recommend the following suggestion to parents:--

“Parents and teachers should endeavour to answer such questions as

these: When do the first stirrings of the moral sense appear in the

child? How do they manifest themselves? What are the emotional and the

intellectual equipments of the child at different periods, and how do

these correspond with its moral outfit? At what time does conscience

enter on the scene? To what acts or omissions does the child apply the

terms right or wrong? If observations of this kind were made with care

and duly recorded, the science of education would have at its disposal

a considerable quantity of material, from which, no doubt, valuable

generalisations might be deduced. Every mother, especially, should

keep a diary in which to note the successive phases of her child’s

physical, mental, and moral growth, with particular attention to the

moral; so that parents may be enabled to make a timely forecast of

their children’s character, to foster in them every germ of good, and

by prompt precautions to suppress, or at least restrain, what is bad.”

We are glad to find that Mr. Adler reinstates fairy tales. He says,

justly, that much of the selfishness of the world is due, not to actual

hard-heartedness, but to a lack of imaginative power; and adds, “I

hold that something, nay, much, has been gained if a child has learned

to take the wishes out of its heart, as it were, and to project them on

the screen of fancy.” The German _Märchen_ hold the first place in his

regards. He says: “They represent the childhood of mankind, and it is

for this reason that they never cease to appeal to children.”

“But how shall we handle these _Märchen_? and what method shall we

employ in putting them to account for our special purpose? My first

counsel is, Tell the story. Do not give it to the child to read. The

child, as it listens to the _Märchen_, looks up with wide-opened eyes

to the face of the person who tells the story, and thrills responsive

to the touch of the earlier life of the race, which thus falls upon its

own.” That is, our author feels, and rightly so, that traditions should

be orally delivered. This is well worth noting. His second counsel is

equally important. “Do not,” he says, “take the moral plum out of the

fairy tale pudding, but let the child enjoy it as a whole.... Treat the

moral element as an incident, emphasise it indeed, but incidentally.

Pluck it as a wayside flower.”

Mr. Felix Adler’s third counsel is, to eliminate from the stories

whatever is merely superstitious, merely a relic of ancient animism,

and, again, whatever is objectionable on moral grounds. In this

connection he discusses the vexed question of how far we should

acquaint children with the existence of evil in the world. His

conclusion is one with which we shall probably be inclined to agree.

“My own view,” he says, “is that we should speak in the child’s hearing

only of those lesser forms of evil, physical or moral, with which it is

already acquainted.” On this ground he would rule out all the cruel

step-mother stories, the unnatural father stories, and so on; though,

probably, most of us would make an exception in favour of Cinderella,

and its charming German rendering _Aschenbrödel_.

_Fables_, according to our author, should form the basis of moral

instruction at the second stage; probably when children emerge from the

nursery. We have all grown up on “Æsop’s Fables,” and “The Dog in the

Manger,” “King Log,” “The Frog and the Stork,” have passed into the

current coinage of our thought. But it is interesting to be reminded

that the so-called Æsop’s fables are infinitely older than the famous

Greek story-teller, and are, for the most part, of Asiatic origin. We

are reminded that it is important to keep the origin of this fable

before us, and exercise discrimination in our choice of those which

we use to convey moral ideas to our children. Such fables as “The Oak

and the Reed,” “The Brazen and the Earthen Pot,” “The Kite and the

Wolf,” Mr. Adler would reject, as breathing of Eastern subserviency

and fear. But possibly for the very reason that the British backbone

is little disposed to bow before man or circumstances, the lessons of

life culled by peoples of other habits and other thoughts may be quite

specially useful to the English child. Anyway, we should lose some of

the most charming fables if we cut out all that savours of the wisdom

of the East. The fables Mr. Felix Adler specially commends are those

which hold up virtue for our praise or evil for our censure; such as

_Cowardice_, the fable of the “Stag and the Fawn;” _Vanity_, “The

Peacock and the Crane;” _Greediness_, “The Dog and the Shadow.”

“In the third part of our primary course, we shall use selected

stories from the classical literature of the Hebrews, and later on from

that of Greece, particularly the ‘Odyssey’ and the ‘Iliad.’”

Here we begin to be at issue with our author. We should not present

Bible stories as carrying only the same moral sanction as the myths of

ancient Greece; neither should we defer their introduction until the

child has gone through a moral course of fairy tales and a moral course

of fables. He should not be able to recall a time before the sweet

stories of old filled his imagination; he should have heard the voice

of the Lord God in the garden in the cool of the evening; should have

been an awed spectator where the angels ascended and descended upon

Jacob’s stony pillow; should have followed Christ through the cornfield

on the Sabbath-day, and sat in the rows of the hungry multitudes--so

long ago that the sacred scenes form the unconscious background of his

thoughts. All things are possible to the little child, and the touch

of the spiritual upon our material world, the difficult problems, the

hard sayings, which are an offence--in the Bible sense of the word--to

his elders, present no difficulties to the child’s all-embracing faith.

We would not say--far otherwise--that every Bible story is fit for

children, because it is a Bible story; neither would we analyse too

carefully, nor draw hard and fast lines to distinguish what we would

call history from that of which it may be said, “Without a parable

spake He not unto them.”

The child is not an exegetical student. The moral teaching, the

spiritual revelations, the lovely imagery of the Bible, are the things

with which he is concerned, and of these he cannot have too much. As

Mr. Adler says, “The narrative of the Bible is saturated with the

moral spirit, the moral issues are everywhere to the forefront. Duty,

guilt and its punishment, the conflict of conscience with inclination,

are the leading themes. The Hebrew people seem to have been endowed

with what may be called a moral genius, and especially did they

emphasise the filial and fraternal duties. Now, it is precisely these

duties that must be impressed on young children.”

Let us see how Mr. Adler would use the Bible narratives. We have

only space for a fragmentary sentence here and there: “Once upon

a time there were two children, Adam and Eve. Adam was a fine and

noble-looking lad.”... “It was so warm that the children never needed

to go indoors.”... “And the snake kept on whispering, ‘Just take one

bite of it; nobody sees you.’”... “You, Adam, must learn to labour, and

you, Eve, to be patient and self-denying for others,” &c.

We leave it to our readers to decide whether “treatment” improves the

Bible narrative, or whether this is the sort of thing to lay hold of a

child’s imagination.

Mr. Ruskin tells us that his incomparable style is due entirely to his

early familiarity with the Bible classics. It is a mistake to translate

Bible stories into slipshod English, even when the narrator keeps close

to the facts of the narrative. The rhythm and cadence of Biblical

phraseology is as charming to a child as to his elders, if not more so.

Read your Bible story to the child, bit by bit; get him to tell you in

his own words (keeping as close as he can to the Bible words) what you

have read, and then, if you like, talk about it; but not much. Above

all, do not let us attempt a “practical commentary on every verse in

Genesis,” to quote the title of a work lately published.

Two points it seems worth while to dwell upon here. Is it advisable

to tell the children the stories of the Bible miracles in an age when

the possibility of miracles is so hotly discussed? In the first place,

all that the most advanced scientists have to urge against “miracles”

is that precisely such phenomena have not come under their personal

notice; but they, before all people, are open to admit that nothing

is impossible and that no experience is final. In the second place,

as for the moral and spiritual instruction which the story of the

miracle affords, it is immaterial whether, in the particular case in

question, a historical fact is recorded, or whether, in this case also,

it is true that “without a parable spake He not unto them.” It is the

vital, not the historical, truth of the story which matters to the

child. As for the latter, he is a bold critic, and well in advance of

the scientific knowledge of the day, who ventures to say, “_This_ is

possible, _that other_ is impossible.”

The second point worthy of our attention in regard to Bible-teaching

is, Is the Bible to be taken whole and undivided, or to be dealt out

to children as they are able to bear it? There are recitals in the

Bible which we certainly should not put into the hands of children

in any other book. We should do well to ask ourselves gravely, if we

have any warrant for supposing that our children will be shielded from

the suggestions of evil which we deliberately lay before them; or if

there is any Divine law requiring that the whole Bible--which is not

only the Word of God, but is also a collection of the legal, literary,

historical, poetical, philosophical, ethical, and polemical writings

of a nation--should be placed altogether and all at once in the hands

of a curious child, as soon as he is able to read? When will our

superstitious reverence for the mere _letter_ of the Scriptures allow

us to break the Bible up, to be read, as all other literature is, in

separate books; and, for the children anyway, those passages “expunged”

which are not fit for their reading; and even those which are perfectly

uninteresting, as, for example, long genealogies? How delightful it

would be that each birthday should bring with it a gift of a new book

of the Bible, progressing in difficulty from year to year, beautifully

bound and illustrated, and printed in clear, inviting type and on good

paper. One can imagine the Christian child collecting his library of

sacred books with great joy and interest, and making a diligent and

delighted study of the volume for the year in its appointed time.

The next best thing, perhaps, is to read bit by bit to the children,

as beautifully as may be, requiring them to tell the story, after

listening, as nearly in the Bible words as they can.

But to return to Mr. Adler. Here is a valuable suggestion: “Children

should be taught to observe moral pictures before any attempt is made

to deduce moral principles. But certain simple _rules_ should be given

to the very young--must, indeed, be given them--for their guidance.

Now, in the legislation ascribed to Moses, we find a number of rules

fit for children, and a collection of these rules might be made for

the use of schools, such as: Ye shall not lie; ye shall not deceive

one another; ye shall take no bribe; thou shalt not go about as a

tale-bearer among thy fellows,” and so on--a very useful collection of

sixteen rules by way of specimen.

Farther on we read, “The story of David’s life is replete with dramatic

interest. It may be arranged in a series of pictures. First picture,

David and Goliath--_i.e._, skill pitted against brute strength, or

the deserved punishment of a bully.” Conceive the barren, common,

self-complete and self-complacent product of “moral” teaching on this

level!

In his treatment of the “Odyssey” and the “Iliad,” Mr. Adler makes some

good points: “My father, anxious that I should become a good man, made

me learn all the poems of Homer,” Xenophon makes one of his characters

say: and here we have suggestive lines as to how the great epics may be

used for example of life and instruction in manners.

What so inspiring as the story of Ulysses to the boy in search of

adventures? and what greater stimulus to courage, prudence, presence

of mind, than in the escapes of the hero? “Ulysses is the type of

sagacity as well as of bravery; his mind teems with inventions.” The

ethical elements of the “Odyssey” are said to be conjugal affection,

filial conduct (Telemachus), presence of mind, and veneration shown

to grand-parents (Laertes). Friendly relations with dependents might

have been added, as illustrated by the lovely story of the nurse

Eurycleia recognising Ulysses when his wife sat by with stony face.

Friendship, again, in the story of Achilles’ grief for Patroclus. Mr.

Adler treats the Homeric stories with more grace and sympathy, and with

less ruthless violation, than he metes out to those of the Bible, but

here again we trace the initial weakness of “secular” morality. The

“Odyssey” and the “Iliad” are religious poems or they are nothing. The

whole motive is religious, every incident is supernaturally directed.

The heroic inspiration is entirely wanting, if we fail to bear in

mind that the characters do and suffer with superlative courage and

fortitude, only because they willed to do and suffer, in all things,

the will of the gods. The acquiescence of the will with that which they

guessed, however darkly, of the divine will, is the truly inspiring

quality of the Homeric heroes; and here, as much as in the teaching of

Bible morality, “secular” ethics are at fault.

The third section of Mr. Adler’s work consists of lessons on duty.

Here again we have excellent counsels and delightful illustrations.

“The teacher should always take the moral habit for granted. He should

never give his pupils to understand that he and they are about to

examine, whether, for instance, it is wrong or not wrong to lie. The

commandment against lying is assumed, and its obligation acknowledged

at the outset.” This we heartily agree with, and especially we like the

apparently inadvertent use of the word “commandment,” which concedes

the whole question at issue--that is, that the idea of duty is a

relative one, depending on an Authority supreme and intimate, which

embraces the thoughts of the heart and the issues of the life.

The story of Hillel, as illustrating the duty of acquiring knowledge,

is very charming, and is deeply interesting to the psychologist, as

illustrating that a naturally implanted desire for knowledge is one

of the springs of action in the human breast. The motives proposed

for seeking knowledge are poor and inadequate; to succeed in life, to

gain esteem, to satisfy yourself, and even to be able, possibly, to

benefit others, are by no means soul-compelling motives. The child who

is encouraged to learn, because to learn is his particular duty in

that state of life to which it has pleased God to call him, has the

strongest of conceivable motives, in the sense that he is rendering

that which is required of him by the Supreme Authority.

This one note of feebleness runs through the whole treatment of the

subject. The drowning man is supposed to counsel himself to “be brave,

because as a human being you are superior to the forces of Nature,

because there is something in you--your moral self--over which the

forces of Nature have no power, because what happens to you in your

private character is not important; but it is important that you assert

the dignity of humanity to the last breath.” This reads rather well;

but how much finer is the attitude of the man who struggles manfully to

save the life that _God has given him_!

The chapter on the influence of manual training is well worthy of

consideration. The concluding sentence runs: “It is a cheering and

encouraging thought that technical labour, which is the source of

our material aggrandisement, may also become, when employed in

the education of the young, the means of enlarging their manhood,

quickening their intellect, and strengthening their character.”

We have taken up Mr. Adler’s work so fully because it is one of the

most serious and successful attempts with which we are acquainted to

present a graduated course of ethics suitable for children of all ages.

Though we are at issue with the author on the all-important point of

moral sanctions, we very earnestly commend the work to the perusal of

parents. The Christian parent will assuredly present the thought of

Law in connection with a Law-giver, and will supplement the thousand

valuable suggestions he will find here with his own strong conviction

that “Ought” is of the Lord God. But even the Christian child suffers

from what may be called slipshod moral teaching. The failings of the

good are a source of sorrow and surprise to the moralist as well as to

the much-endeavouring and often-failing Christian soul. That temptation

and sin are inseparable from our present condition may be allowed; but

that an earnest and sincere Christian should be habitually guilty

of failing in candour, frankness, justice to the characters and

opinions of others, should be intemperate in censure, and--dare we say

it?--spiteful in criticism, is possibly to be traced, not to fallible

human nature, but to defective education.

The ethical idea has never been fairly and fully presented to the

mind on these vulnerable points. The man is unable to give due

weight to the opinions of another, because the child has not been

instructed in the duty of candour. There is little doubt that careful,

methodical, ethical instruction, with abundant illustration, and--we

need not add--inspired by the thought, “God wills it,” should, if

such instruction could be made general, have an appreciable effect in

elevating the national character. Therefore, let us repeat, we hail

with gratitude such a contribution to the practical ethics of the

nursery and schoolroom as Mr. Adler’s work on “The Moral Instruction of

Children.”

FOOTNOTES:

[9] “The Moral Instruction of Children.” 6s. By Felix

Adler. Published by Edward Arnold.

“Education from a National Standpoint.” By Alfred Fouillée.

Translated and edited by W. J. Greenstreet, M.A.

Published by Edward Arnold.

“Faith.” Eleven Sermons, with a Preface, by Rev. H. C.

Beeching. Published by Percival & Co.

CHAPTER XII

_FAITH AND DUTY_

II

Since Locke established a school of English educational thought, based

on English philosophy, our tendency has been exclusively towards

naturalism, if not materialism; to the exclusion of a vital element in

education--the force of the idea.

Madame de Staël has a remarkable passage concerning this tendency in

English philosophy which, though we may not be disposed to admit her

conclusions _en bloc_, should certainly give us pause, and lead us to

consider whether we should not wisely modify the tendencies of our

national thought by laying ourselves open to foreign influences:--

“Hobbes prit à la lettre la philosophie qui fait dériver toutes

nos idées des impressions des sens; il n’en craignit point les

conséquences, et il a dit hardiment _que l’âme était, soumise à la

nécessité comme la société au despotisme_. Le culte des tous les

sentiments élévés et purs est tellement consolidé en Angleterre par

les institutions politiques et religieuses, que les spéculations

de l’esprit tournent autour de ces imposantes colonnes sans jamais

les ébranler. Hobbes eut donc peu de partizans dans son pays; mais

l’influence de Locke fut plus universelle. Comme son caractère était

morale et religieuse, il ne se permit aucun des raisonnements

corrupteurs qui dérivaient nécessairement de sa métaphysique; et la

plupart de ses compatriotes, en l’adoptant, ont eu comme lui la noble

inconséquence de séparer les résultats des principes, tandis que Hume

et les philosophes français, après avoir admis le système, l’ont

appliqué d’une manière beaucoup plus logique.

“La métaphysique de Locke n’a eu d’autre effet sur les esprits, en

Angleterre, que de ternir un peu leur originalité naturelle; quand même

elle dessécherait la source des grandes pensées philosophiques, elle ne

saurait détruire le sentiment religieux, qui sait si bien y suppléer;

mais cette métaphysique reçue dans le reste de l’Europe, l’Allemagne

exceptée, a été l’une des principales causes de l’immoralité dont on

s’est fait une théorie pour en mieux assurer la pratique.”

It is well that we should recognise the continuity of English

educational thought, and perceive that we have in Spencer and Baine

the lineal descendants of the earlier philosophers. Probably the

chief source of weakness in our attempt to formulate a science of

education is that we do not perceive that education is the outcome

of philosophy. We deal with the issue and ignore the source. Hence

our efforts lack continuity and definite aim. We are content to pick

up a suggestion here, a practical hint there, without even troubling

ourselves to consider what is that scheme of life of which such hints

and suggestions are the output.

Mr. Greenstreet’s translation of M. Fouillée’s remarkable work[10]

should not be without its effect upon the burning questions of the

hour. As the translator well says in his preface: “The spirit of

reform is in the air; the question of the retention of Greek at the

Universities is but a ripple of the great wave that seems ready to

burst upon us and to obliterate the characteristic features of our

national system of education.... A glance at the various forms of the

educational systems obtaining in Europe and America is sufficient to

betray to the observant eye how near to the verge of chaos we are

standing.”

These are words of insight and wisdom, but let us not therefore despair

as though the end of all things were at hand. The truth is, we are in

the throes of an educational revolution; we are emerging from chaos

rather than about to plunge into it; we are beginning to recognise

that education is the applied science of life, and that we really have

existing material in the philosophy of the ages and the science of the

day to formulate an educational code whereby we may order the lives of

our children and regulate our own. We need not aspire to a complete and

exhaustive code of educational laws. This will come to us duly when

humanity has, so to speak, fulfilled itself. Meantime, we have enough

to go on with if we would believe it. What we have to do is to gather

together and order our resources; to put the first thing foremost and

all things in sequence, and to see that education is neither more nor

less than the practical application of our philosophy. Hence, if our

educational thought is to be sound and effectual, we must look to the

philosophy which underlies it, and must be in a condition to trace

every counsel of perfection for the bringing up of children to one or

other of the two schools of philosophy of which it must needs be the

outcome.

Is our system of education to be the issue of naturalism or of

idealism, or is there indeed a _media via_? This is practically the

question which M. Fouillée sets himself to answer in the spirit of a

philosophical educationalist. He examines his premisses and draws his

deductions with a candour, culture, and philosophic insight which carry

the confidence of the reader. No doubt he is of a mind with that umpire

in a cricket-match who lays down the dictum that one must be quite fair

to both sides with a _little_ leaning to one’s own. M. Fouillée takes

sides with classical as opposed to scientific culture. But he is not a

mere partisan; he has philosophic reasons for the faith that is in him,

and his examination of the question of national education is full of

instruction and inspiration for the thoughtful parent as well as for

the schoolmaster.

M. Fouillée gives in his preamble a key to his treatment of the

subject. He says:

“On this as on all great questions of practical philosophy Guyau

has left his mark.... He has treated the question from the highest

standpoint, and has treated it in a strictly scientific form. ‘Given

the hereditary merits and faults of a race, how far can we modify

existing heredity by means of education for a new heredity?’ For the

problem is nothing less than this. It is not merely a matter of the

instruction of individuals, but of the preservation and improvement

of the race. Education must therefore be based upon the physiological

and moral laws of the culture of races.... The ethnical is the true

point of view. By means of education we must create such hereditary

tendencies as will be useful to the race both physically and

intellectually.”

M. Fouillée begins at the beginning. He examines the principle of

selection, and shows that it is a working principle, not only in

animal, but in intellectual, æsthetic, and moral life. He demonstrates

that there is what may be called psychological selection, according to

whose laws those _ideas_ which are the fittest rule the world; and it

is in the light of this truth, of the natural selection of ideas and

of their enormous force, that he would examine into the vexed question

of the subjects and methods of education. M. Fouillée complains with

justice that no attempt has been made to harmonise or unify education

as a whole in any one civilised nation. Controversy rages round quite

secondary questions--whether education shall be literary or scientific?

and, again, whether the ancient or the modern languages shall be

taught? But science and literature do not exhaust the field. Our author

introduces a new candidate. He says:

“In this volume we shall inquire if the link between science and

literature is not to be found in the knowledge of man, of society, of

the great laws of the universe--_i.e._, in morals and social science

and æsthetics, in a word, in philosophy.”

Now this is the gist of the teaching which we have laboured to advance

in the _Parents’ Union_ and its various agencies.

“The proper study of mankind is man,” is one of those “thoughts

beyond their thought” which poets light upon; and I am able to add my

personal testimony to the fact that under no other study with which I

am acquainted is it possible to trace such almost visible expansion of

mind and soul in the young student as in this of philosophy.

A peculiarly interesting and original line of thought, worked out very

fully in this volume, is, that just as the child with an individual

bent should have that bent encouraged and “educated,” so of a nation:--

“If social science rejects every mystical interpretation of the

common spirit animating a nation, it by no means rejects the reflected

consciousness or spontaneous divination, possessed by every nation, of

the functions which have devolved upon it.”

Here is a most fruitful suggestion. Think of the fitness of a scheme of

physical, intellectual, and moral training, based upon our ideal of the

English character and of the destiny of the English nation.

The chapter on “_Power of Education and of Idea-Forces--Suggestions--

Heredity_” is very valuable, as utilising a floating nebulæ of

intuitions, which are coming upon us in connection with the hundred and

one hypnotic marvels of the day. M. Fouillée maintains that--

“The power of instruction and education, denied by some and exaggerated

by others, being nothing but the power of ideas and sentiments, it is

impossible to be too exact in determining at the outset the extent and

limits of this force. This psychological problem is the foundation of

pedagogy.”

In a word, M. Fouillée returns boldly to the Platonic philosophy;

the _idea_ is to him all in all, in philosophy and education. But

he returns empty-handed. The wave of naturalism, now perhaps on the

ebb, has left neither flotsam nor jetsam for him, save for stranded

fragments of the Darwinian theory. Now, we maintain that to this wave

of thought, naturalistic, materialistic--what you will--we owe the

discovery of the physiological basis of education.

While we believed that thought was purely volatile, incapable of

impact upon matter, or of being acted upon by matter, our theories of

education were necessarily vague. We could not catch our Ariel; how

then could we school him? But now, the physiologists have taught us

that our wilful sprite rests with the tips of his toes, at any rate,

upon solid ground; nay more, his foothold is none so slight but that it

leaves footmarks behind, an impress on that domain of the physical in

which we are somewhat at home. The impalpable thoughts that we think

leave their mark upon the quite palpable substance of the brain, set

up, so the physiologists tell us, connections between the nerve-cells

of which that organ is composed; in fact, to make a long story short,

the cerebrum “grows to the uses it is earliest and most constantly

put to.” This fact opens up a function of education upon which M.

Fouillée hardly touches, that most important function of the formation

of habits--physical, intellectual, moral. “Sow an act, reap a habit;

sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny,” says

Thackeray. And a great function of the educator is to secure that acts

shall be so regularly, purposefully, and methodically sown that the

child shall reap the habits of the good life in thinking and doing,

with the minimum of conscious effort.

We are only now beginning to discover how beneficial are the laws which

govern our being. Educate the child in these habits and the man’s life

will run in them, without the constant wear and tear of the moral

effort of decision. Once, twice, three times in a day, he will still,

no doubt, have to choose between the highest and the less high, the

best and the less good course. But all the minor moralities of life

may be made habitual to him. He has been brought up to be courteous,

prompt, punctual, neat, considerate; and he practises these virtues

without conscious effort. It is much easier to behave in the way he

is used to, than to originate a new line of conduct. And this is so,

because it is graciously and mercifully ordered that there shall be

a physical record and adaptation as the result of our educational

efforts; and that the enormous strain of moral endeavour shall come

upon us only occasionally. “Sow a habit, reap a character;” that is,

the formation of habits is the chief means whereby we modify the

original hereditary disposition of the child until it becomes the

character of the man.

But even in this physiological work, the spiritual force of the idea

has its part to play. For a habit is set up by following out an initial

idea with a long sequence of corresponding acts. You tell a child that

the Great Duke slept in so narrow a bed that he could not turn over,

because, said he, “When you want to turn over it’s time to get up.” The

boy does not wish to get up in the morning; but he does wish to be like

the hero of Waterloo. You stimulate him to act upon this idea day after

day for a month or so, until the habit is formed, and it is just as

easy as not to get up in good time.

The functions of education may be roughly defined as twofold; (_a_)

the formation of habits; (_b_) the presentation of ideas. The first

depends far more largely than we recognise on physiological processes.

The second is purely spiritual in origin, method, and result. Is it not

possible that here we have the meeting-point of the two philosophies

which have divided mankind since men began to think about their

thoughts and ways? Both are right; both are necessary; both have their

full activity in the development of a human being at his best. The

_crux_ of modern thought, as indeed of all profound thought, is, Is

it conceivable that the spiritual should have any manner of impact

upon the material? Every problem, from the education of a little child

to the Divine Incarnation, turns upon this point. Conceive this

possibility and all is plain, from the marvels resulting from hypnotic

suggestion to the miracles of our faith. We can even believe what we

are told, that, by an effort of passionate concentration of thought

and feeling the devout may arrive at the figure of the stigmata upon

hands and feet. With this key nothing is impossible to our faith, all

we ask for is precedent. And after all, this inter-action of forces is

the most common and every-day of our experiences. What is it but the

impact of spirit upon matter which writes upon the face of flesh that

record of character and conduct which we call countenance. And not only

upon the face. He is a dull scholar in the lore of human nature, who

cannot read a man fairly well from a back view. The sculptor knows the

trick of it. There is a statue of the late Prince Consort in Edinburgh

in which representative groups pay homage to the Prince. Stand so as

to get the back view of any one of them and the shoulders of scholar,

soldier, peasant, artisan, tell unmistakably the tale of their several

lives. What is this but the impress of spirit upon matter!

Anyway we are on the horns of a dilemma. There is no middle course

open to us. The physiologists have made it absolutely plain that the

brain is concerned with thinking. Nay more, that thought may go on

without any volition on the part of the thinker. Further, that much of

our best work in art and literature is the result of what is called

unconscious cerebration. Now, we must admit one of two things. Either

thought is a process of the material brain, one more “mode of motion,”

as the materialists contend, or the material brain is the agent of the

spiritual thought, which acts upon it, let us say, as the fingers of

a player upon the keys of his instrument. Grant this and the whole

question is conceded. The impact of the spiritual upon the material is

an accepted fact.

As we have had occasion to say before, in this great work of education

parents and teachers are permitted to play only a subordinate part

after all. You may bring your horse to the water, but you can’t make

him drink; and you may present ideas of the fittest to the mind of the

child; but you do not know in the least which he will take, and which

he will reject. And very well for us it is that this safeguard to his

individuality is implanted in every child’s breast. Our part is to see

that his educational _plat_ is constantly replenished with fit and

inspiring ideas, and then we must needs leave it to the child’s own

appetite to take which he will have, and as much as he requires. Of one

thing we must beware. The least symptom of satiety, especially when the

ideas we present are moral and religious, should be taken as a serious

warning. Persistence on our part just then may end in the child’s never

willingly sitting down to that dish any more.

The very limitations we see to our own powers in this matter of

presenting ideas should make us the more anxiously careful as to the

nature of the ideas set before our children. We shall not be content

that they learn geography, history, Latin, what not,--we shall ask what

salient ideas are presented in each such study, and how will these

ideas affect the intellectual and moral development of the child.

We shall be in a mood, that is, to go calmly and earnestly into the

question of education as presented by M. Fouillée. We shall probably

differ from him in many matters of detail, but we shall most likely

be inclined to agree with his conclusion that, not some subject

of mere utility, but moral and social science conveyed by means of

history, literature, or otherwise, is the one subject which we are

not at liberty to leave out from the curriculum of “a being breathing

thoughtful breath.”

The tables of studies given in the appendix are of extreme value. Every

subject is treated from what may be called the ideal point of view.

“Two things are necessary. First, we must introduce into the study

of each science the philosophic spirit and method, general views,

the search for the most general principles and conclusions. We must

then reduce the different sciences to unity by a sound training in

philosophy, which will be as obligatory to students in science as to

students in literature.... Scientific truths, said Descartes, are

battles won; describe to the young the principal and most heroic of

these battles; you will thus interest them in the results of science,

and you will develop in them a scientific spirit by means of the

enthusiasm for the conquest of truth; you will make them see the power

of the reasoning which has led to discoveries in the past, and which

will do so again in the future. How interesting arithmetic and geometry

might be if we gave a short history of their principal theorems; if the

child were mentally present at the labours of a Pythagoras, a Plato,

a Euclid, or in modern times of a Viète, a Descartes, a Pascal, or

a Leibnitz. Great theories, instead of being lifeless and anonymous

abstractions, would become human, living truths, each with its own

history, like a statue by Michael Angelo, or like a painting by

Raphael.”

FOOTNOTES:

[10] “Education from a National Standpoint.”

CHAPTER XIII

_FAITH AND DUTY_

III

There is a little involuntary resistance in our minds to any teaching

which shall draw the deep things of our faith within the sphere of

the laws which govern our development as human beings. We prefer that

the commerce between God and the soul, in which is our life, should

be altogether “supernatural,” apart from the common laws of life,

arbitrary, inexplicable, opposed to reason. If we err in this, it is in

reverence we err. Our thought may be poor and crude, but all our desire

is to hallow the Divine Name, and we know no other way in which to set

it apart. But though we err in reverence, we _do_ err, and, in the

spiritual, as in the natural world, the motive does not atone for the

act. We lose through this misconception of our relations with God the

sense of unity in our lives. We become aware of an altogether unnatural

and irreligious classification into things sacred and things secular.

We are not in all things _at one_ with God. There are beautiful lives

in which there is no trace of this separation, whose aims are confined

to the things we call sacred. But many thoughtful earnest persons

feel sorely the need of a conception of the divine relation which

shall embrace the whole of human life, which shall make art, science,

politics, all those cares and thoughts of men which are not rebellious,

sacred also, as being all engaged in the great evolution, the evolution

of the Kingdom of God.

Our religious thought, as our educational thought, is, far more than we

imagine, the outcome of our philosophy. And do not let us imagine that

philosophy is not for the general run of men, but only for the few.

On the contrary, there is no living soul who does not develop his own

philosophy of life--that which he appropriates of the current thoughts

of his time, modified by his own experiences.

It would be interesting to trace the effect upon religious thought

of the two great schools of philosophy--the Idealistic and the

Naturalistic; but that is beyond our powers, and beyond our purpose

here; we must confine ourselves to what is immediately practical.

The present day _crux_ is, that naturalistic philosophy being in the

ascendant, and the things of our religion being altogether idealistic,

many noble natures are in revolt, feeling that they cannot honestly

accept as truth that which is opposed to human reason. Others, to whom

their religious faith is the first thing, but who are yet in touch

with the thought and discovery of the day, affect an only half-honest

compromise with themselves, and say that there are certain questions

which they will not examine; matters secular alone being open to

searching scrutiny. Now, it is not, as we so often hear, that the

times are out of joint, that Christianity is effete, that there is

any inherent antagonism between the facts of natural and the facts of

spiritual life. It is our own philosophy which needs to be adjusted.

We have somehow managed to get life out of focus; we have begun with

false initial ideas, and have taken the logical inferences from these

for essential truth. We have not perceived that the concern of the

reasoning powers is not with moral or spiritual truth, or even with

what we call facts, but is simply with the _logical_ inferences from

any premisses whatever accepted by the mind.

In our examination of M. Fouillée’s _Education from a National

Standpoint_, we made some attempt to show that the two schemes of

philosophy which have hitherto divided the world have done so because

both are right, and neither is exclusively right. Matter and spirit,

force and idea, work together in the evolution of character. The brain,

somehow, makes material record of those ideas which inspire the life.

But the brain does not originate those ideas. They are spiritual in

their nature, and are spiritually conveyed, whether by means of the

printed page, the glance of an eye, the touch of a hand, or in that

holy mystery of the inbreathing of the Divine Spirit, of which we

cannot tell whence it comes nor whither it goes. Once we recognise

that all thoughts that breathe and words that burn are of their nature

spiritual, and appeal to the spiritual within us--that, in fact, all

intercourse of thought and feeling belongs to the realm of ideas,

spiritually conveyed, the great mysteries of our religion cease to be

hedged off from our common experiences. If the friend who sits beside

us deals with us, spirit with spirit, by means of quick interchange of

ideas, is it hard to believe that just so is the intercourse between

the Spirit of God and the spirit of man? The more perfect the sympathy

between human souls, the less the need for spoken words. How easy to go

on from this to the thought of that most intimate and blissful of all

intercourse, the converse between the devout soul and its God. Nothing

can be more obvious, real, natural, necessary, than that the Father

of Spirits should graciously keep open such intimate access to, and

converse with, the spirits of men.

“I would that one would grant me,

O my Lord,

To find Thee only.

* * * * *

That Thou alone wouldst speak to me, and I to Thee,

As a lover talking to his loved one,

A friend at table with his friend,”[11]

is ever the aspiration of the devout soul. This continuous aspiration

towards closest communion is, spoken or unspoken, the prayer of faith.

A vain and fond imagination, says the sceptic, begotten of the heart,

as when Narcissus became enamoured of his reflected image! What have

we to say in reply? Nothing. He who does not perceive that he loves in

his brother not the material form, but the spiritual being of which

this form is one expression, how can he understand that the Spirit of

God should draw with irresistible drawings the spirit of man, which is

indeed the whole man. For, after all, what is the body but the garment

which the spirit shapes to its uses?

To accept the outward seeming, to ignore the spiritual reality, is

the easier way. To say that prayer is flung, as a child flings his

kite, into the air, only to come down again; to say that men are the

creatures of circumstances, with no power to determine their own fate;

that this belief and that are equal verities, and that the worship of

Christ or of Buddha is a mere affair of climate and conditions; this

easy tolerance commends itself to many minds in these days.

“And to what does this easy and sceptical life lead a man?... To

what, we say, does this scepticism lead? It leads a man to shameful

loneliness and selfishness, the more shameful because it is so

good-humoured and conscienceless and serene. Conscience! What is

conscience? Why accept remorse? What is public or private faith?

Mythuses alike, enveloped in enormous tradition. If, seeing and

acknowledging the lies of the world, Arthur, as see them you can with

only too fatal a clearness, you submit to them without any protest

further than a laugh; if, plunged yourself in easy sensuality, you

allow the whole wretched world to go past groaning by you unmoved; if

the fight for the truth is taking place, and all men of honour are on

the ground armed on the one side or the other, and you alone are to lie

on your balcony and smoke your pipe out of the noise and the danger,

you had better have died, or never have been at all, than be such a

sensual coward.”[12]

Mr. Beeching’s _Eleven Sermons on Faith_ are in refreshing contrast

with this sort of modern Saduceeism. In his view, faith is not mystic,

supernatural, an exceptional development; it is the common basis of

our dealings with each other. Credit, trust, confidence--the framework

of society rests upon these. “I cannot trust you”--what worse thing

can we say to one another? The law recognises every man’s right to the

confidence of his fellow-men, and will have a man accounted innocent

until he is proved guilty. Our whole commercial and banking systems,

what are they, but enormous systems of _credit_, and only one in a

hundred, or one in a thousand, fails to sustain this credit. Family

and social life rest upon credit of another sort; let us call it moral

credit, and only one in a hundred or one in a thousand forfeits the

trust. If one here and there give occasion for jealousy, mistrust,

suspicion, why, the exception proves the rule. In his dealings with

men, man lives by credit; in his dealings with God, man lives by faith.

Let us use the same word in both cases, and say that man is a spiritual

being, and, in all his relations, Godward or manward, he lives by

faith. How simple and easy a thing faith becomes! How especially easy

to the children who trust everybody and offer a confiding hand to any

guide. Could we only rid ourselves of the materialistic notion that

spiritual things are not to be understood by us, and that to believe in

God is altogether a different thing from to trust a friend, how easy we

should find the questions which we allow to stagger our faith.

But the Kingdom of God is coming upon us with power. Let us only break

down this foolish barrier of the flesh; let us perceive that our

relations with each other are the relations of spirit with spirit, and

that spoken and written words are no more than the outward and visible

signs of ideas spiritually conveyed, and how inevitable, incessant,

all-encompassing becomes the presence of God about us. Faith is, then,

the simple trust of person in Person. We realise with fearful joy

that He is about our path, and about our bed, and spieth out all our

ways--not with the austere eye of a judge, but with the caressing,

if critical, glance of a parent. How easy, then, to understand the

never-ceasing, ever-inspiring intercourse of the Divine Spirit with

the spirit of man--how, morning by morning, He awakeneth _our_ ear,

also; how His inspiration and instruction come in the direction, and

in the degree, in which the man is capable of receiving them. It is no

longer a puzzle to us that the uninstructed savage shows sweet traits

of pity and generosity, “for His God doth instruct him and doth teach

him.” We are not confounded when we hear of a righteous man who lifts

up his face to Heaven, and says, “There is no God,” because we know,

He maketh His sun to shine upon the evil and upon the good, and that

just that measure of moral light and leading which a man lays himself

open to receive is freely given to him. He may shut his eyes and say,

“There is no sun,” but none the less is he warmed and fed and comforted

by the light he denies. This is the faith in which we would bring up

our children, this strong, passionate sense of the dear nearness of

our God; found in this conviction, the controversies of the day will

interest but not exercise us, for we are on the other side of all doubt

once we know Him in whom we have believed.

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. We advance in

this lore of the soul only in proportion as we make it our study; and

all of us who have the bringing up of children must needs be thankful

for every word of help and insight which shall open our eyes to the

realities which are spiritually discerned. In this view parents will

be glad to read and ponder the Sermons before us. Profound thought is

conveyed in language of very great simplicity and purity. The sermons

are written from the standpoint of present day thought, are not at all

emotional, nor even hortatory, but they are very strengthening and

refreshing. You read, and go on your way rejoicing in a strong sense

of the reality of things unseen. Perhaps this result is due to Mr.

Beeching’s presentation of the _naturalness_ of faith.

“It is noticeable that while our Lord is always demanding Faith, He

offers no definition of the Faith He requires; so that there is a

presumption that He meant by Faith just what men ordinarily mean by

it. And the presumption is increased when it is remembered that Faith

in our Lord began with being faith in human qualities before those

qualities were seen to be divine. The faith of the Apostles increased

under our Lord’s careful training, both in depth and breadth; but

between the first attraction that drew (say) Peter from his nets, and

the last declaration of his worship upon the shores of Gennesaret,

there was no breach of continuity. Indeed, as if to assure us that

the Apostle’s human faith had not after the Resurrection ‘changed

to something else,’ and become an indefinite theological virtue, we

find the word used to express it which, of all the words which labour

to express faith, is the one most deeply tinged with human feeling:

‘Simon, son of Jonas, _lovest_ thou Me more than these?’ We must ask,

therefore, what, as between man and man, is commonly meant by Faith,

and then we can examine whether our explanation fits the several groups

of passages in the Gospels.”

The above extract from the very thoughtful and instructive Preface

illustrates what we mean by the naturalness of faith, not that which

comes of itself and by itself, but that which is acceptable, fit, and

proper to our nature whenever and whencesoever it arrive. “For,” as Mr.

Beeching says, “as faith is itself no self-originated impulse, but the

springing up of a man’s heart in response to the encircling pressure of

the ‘Everlasting Arms,’ so its reward is to feel more deeply and ever

more deeply their divine support.”

The eleven sermons are upon “The Object of Faith,” “The Worship of

Faith,” “The Righteousness of Faith,” “The Food of Faith,” “National

Faith,” “The Eye of Faith,” “The Ear of Faith,” “The Activity of

Faith,” “The Gentleness of Faith,” “The Discipline of Faith,” “Faith in

Man.”

In his examination of “The Object of Faith,” Mr. Beeching asks: “What

then is He like; what kind of countenance is it that shines out upon

us from the Gospel pages? Let us turn to them and see.” And we read

the story of how Jesus, being moved with compassion, touched the eyes

of the two blind men by the wayside going out from Jericho. How Christ

had compassion on other things besides bodily sickness. “Christ has

compassion also on ignorance; on the aimless wandering of men after

their own desires, without a Master to follow; on the weariness of

spirit that such a life brings about.” Again, “Christ has compassion

not only on sickness and ignorance, but on sin--on the sinner who

repents.” And we read the story of the woman whose sins, which were

many, were forgiven, for she loved much. Again, we see the countenance

of Christ as it is turned upon that young man, of whom it is said,

“Then Jesus, looking upon him, loved him.” “Compassion, then, for

suffering and ignorance, and sin that repents, love for enthusiasm,

this we have seen in the face of Christ.” One more divine regard we

are invited to contemplate; how the Lord turned and looked upon Peter.

“Can you imagine with what a face our Lord looked upon Peter, who had

thrice denied Him, after confidently affirming that he would go with

Him to death? Would that that face would shine upon us with whatever

reproach when we in word or deed deny Him, that so we too may remember

and weep.” How the heart rises to such teaching as this--the simple

presentation of Christ as He walked among men. Well did our Lord say:

“I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto Me.” The pity of it is

that He, the altogether lovely, is so seldom lifted up to our adoring

gaze. Perhaps, when our teachers invite us to behold the face of

Christ, we shall learn the full interpretation of that profound word.

He will draw all men, because it is not possible for any human soul to

resist the divine loveliness once it is fairly and fully presented to

his vision.

The sermon on the “Worship of Faith,” sets forth that “to worship

Christ is to bow down with love and wonder and thankfulness, before

the most perfect goodness that the world has ever seen, and to believe

that that goodness was the express image of God the Father.” All

aims and all ideals, that are not the aims and ideals of Christ, are

distinctly opposed to such worship, and the man who entertains these

alien ideals may not call himself a Christian. After examining that

attitude of the spirit towards Christ which belongs to the worship of

faith, the rest of the sermon is very practical. “Work is Worship,” is

the keynote: one longs that a writer who knows so well how to touch the

secret springs had taken this opportunity to move us to that “heart’s

adoration,” which is dearer to God; but, indeed, the whole volume has

this tendency. It is well to be reminded that “the thorough and willing

performance of any duty, however humble or however exalted, is like the

offering of incense to Christ, well-pleasing and acceptable.”

The sermon on the “Righteousness of Faith,” is extremely important and

instructive. The writer dwells on the “deplorable cant” with which we

pronounce ourselves “miserable sinners,” combining the “sentiments of

the Pharisees in the parable with the expressions of the publican.”

“Christ’s language about man’s sinfulness is altogether free from

vagueness and hyperbole; when He blames He blames for definite faults

which we can appreciate, and He is so far from declaring that men can

do no good thing, that He assumes always that man in his proper state

of dependence upon God has the power to do righteousness. ‘Whosoever

shall do the will of My Father, which is in heaven, the same is My

brother, and sister, and mother.’... But the question remains, How,

considering our actual shortcomings, can any of us be spoken of by

Christ as righteous here and now? This is the question in answer to

which St. Paul wrote two of his greatest Epistles. His answer was,

that according to Christ, a man is accounted righteous, not from a

consideration of his works, but from a consideration of his faith

in God. Human righteousness is not a verdict upon the summing up of

a life, but it is reckoned to a man at any moment from a certain

disposition of his spirit to the Spirit of God; a disposition of trust,

love, reverence, the disposition of a dutiful son to a good father....

Righteousness, in the only sense in which it is possible for men, means

believing and trusting God.”

We have not space to take up in detail all the teaching of this

inspiring little volume. We commend it to parents. Who, as they, have

need to nourish the spiritual life in themselves? Who, as they, have

need to examine themselves as to with how firm a grasp they hold the

mysteries of our faith? Who, as they, need to have their ideas as to

the supreme relationship so clear that they can be translated into

baby speech? Besides, we have seen that it is the duty of the educator

to put the first thing foremost, and all things in sequence; only one

thing is needful--that we “have faith in God”; let us deliver our

thoughts from vagueness and our ways from variableness, if we would

help the children towards this higher life. To this end, we gladly

welcome teaching which is rather nourishing than stimulating, and which

should afford real help towards “sober walking in pure Gospel ways.”

FOOTNOTES:

[11] “The Imitation of Christ” (Rhythmic translation).

[12] _Pendennis._ Thackeray.

CHAPTER XIV

_THE HEROIC IMPULSE_[13]

“To set forth, as only art can, the beauty and the joy of living, the

beauty and the blessedness of death, the glory of battle and adventure,

the nobility of devotion--to a cause, an ideal, a passion even--the

dignity of resistance, the sacred quality of patriotism, that is my

ambition here,” says the editor of “Lyra Heroica” in his preface.

We all feel that some such expression of the “simpler sentiments,

more elemental emotions” should be freely used in the education of

children, that, in fact, heroic poetry contains such inspiration to

noble living as is hardly to be found elsewhere; and also we are aware

that it is only in the youth of peoples that these elemental emotions

find free expression in song. We look at our own ballad literature

and find plenty of the right material, but it is too occasional and

too little connected, and so though we would prefer that the children

should imbibe patriotism and heroism at the one fountain head, we think

it cannot be done. We have no truly English material, we say, for

education in this kind, and we fall back on the Homeric myths in one

or other of the graceful and spirited renderings which have been made

specially for children.

But what if it should turn out that we have our own Homer, our own

Ulysses? Mr. Stopford Brooke has made a great discovery for us who

look at all things from the child standpoint. Possibly he would not

be gratified to know that his “History of Early English Literature,”

invaluable addition as it is to the library of the student and the man

of letters, should be appropriated as food for babes. All the same,

here is what we have long wanted. The elemental emotions and heroic

adventures of the early English put into verse and tale, strange and

eerie as the wildest fairy tale, yet breathing in every line the

English temper and the English virtue that go to the making of heroes.

Not that Beowulf, the hero of the great poem, was precisely English,

but where the English came from, there dwelt he, and Beowulf was early

adopted as the national hero, whose achievements were sung in every

hall.

The poem, says Mr. Stopford Brooke, consisting of three thousand

one hundred and eighty-three lines, is divided into two parts by an

interval of fifty years; the first, containing Beowulf’s great deeds

against the monster Grendel and his dam; the second, Beowulf’s conquest

of the Fire-drake and his death and burial. We are told that we may

fairly claim the poem as English, that it is in our tongue and in our

country alone that it is preserved. The hero Beowulf comes of brave

and noble parents, and mildness and more than mortal daring meet in

him. When he comes to Hrothgar to conquer Grendel it is of his counsel

as much as of his strength that we hear. The queen begs him to be

friendly in council to her sons. Hrothgar says to him, “Thou holdest

thy faith with patience and thy might with prudence of mind. Thou shalt

be a comfort to thy people and a help to heroes.” None, it is said,

could order matters more wisely than he. When he is dying he looks

back on his life, and that which he thinks of the most is not his

great war deeds, but his patience, his prudence, his power of holding

his own well and of avoiding new enmities. “Each of us must await the

close of life,” says he; “let him who can, gain honour before he die.

That is best for a warrior when he is dead. But do thou throughout

this day have patience of thy woes; I look for that from thee.” Such

the philosophy of this hero, legendary or otherwise, of some early

century after Christ, before His religion had found its way among those

northern tribes. Gentle, like Nelson, he had Nelson’s iron resolution.

What he undertook to do he went through without a thought, save of

getting to the end of it. Fear is wholly unknown to him, and he seems,

like Nelson, to have inspired his captains with his own courage. “I

swore no false oaths,” he said when dying; so also he kept his honour

in faithfulness to his lord. On foot, alone, in front, while life

lasted, he was his king’s defence. He kept it in equal faithfulness

when his lord was dead, and that to his own loss, for when the kingdom

was offered to him he refused, and trained Heardreg, the king’s son, to

war and learning, guarded him kindly with honour, and avenged him when

he was slain. He kept it in generosity, for he gave away all the gifts

that he received; in courtesy, for he gave even to those who had been

rude to him; and he is always gentle and grave with women. Above all,

he kept it in war, for these things are said of him, “so shall a man do

when he thinks to gain praise that shall never end, and cares not for

his life in battle.” “Let us have fame or death,” he cries, and when

Wiglaf comes to help him against the dragon, and Beowulf is wrapped in

the flame, Wiglaf recalls to him the aim of his whole life:--

“Beowulf, beloved, bear thyself well. Thou wert wont to say in youth

that thou wouldst never let honour go. Now, strong in deeds, ward thy

life, firm-souled prince, with all thy might, I will be thy helper.”

“These,” adds Mr. Stopford Brooke, “are the qualities of the man and

the hero, and I have thought it worth while to dwell on them, because

they represent the ancient English ideal, the manhood which pleased the

English folk even before they came to Britain, and because in all our

histories since Beowulf’s time, for twelve hundred years or so, they

have been repeated in the lives of the English warriors by land and sea

whom we chiefly honour. But it is not only the idea of a hero which we

have in Beowulf, it is also the idea of a king, the just governor, the

wise politician, the builder of peace, the defender of his own folk

at the price of his life, ‘the good king, the folk king, the beloved

king, the war ward of his land, the winner of treasure for the need of

his people, the hero who thinks in death of those who sail the sea,

the gentle and terrible warrior, who is buried amid the tears of his

people.’”

We owe Mr. Stopford Brooke earnest gratitude for bringing this heroic

ideal of the youth of our nation within reach of the unlearned.

But what have we been about to let a thousand years and more go by

without ever drawing on the inspiration of this noble ideal in giving

impulse to our children’s lives. We have many English heroes, it may

be objected: we have no need of this resuscitated great one from a

long buried past. We have indeed heroes galore to be proud of, but

somehow they have not often been put into song in such wise as to

reach the hearts of the children and the unlearned. We have to thank

Tennyson for our Arthur, and Shakespeare for our Henry the Fifth, but

we imagine that parents will find their children’s souls more in touch

with Beowulf than with either of these, because, no doubt, the legends

of a nation’s youth are the pages of history which most easily reach

a child, and Beowulf belongs to a younger stage of civilisation than

even Arthur. We hope the author of “Early English Literature” will

sometime give us the whole of the poem translated with a special view

to children, and interspersed with his own luminous teaching as we have

it here. The quaintness of the metre employed gives a feeling of _eld_

which carries the reader back, very successfully, to the long ago of

the poem.

We have already quoted largely from this “History of Early English

Literature,” but perhaps a fuller extract will give a better idea of

the work and of its real helpfulness to parents. The cost of the two

rather expensive volumes should be well repaid if a single child were

to be fired with emulation of the heroic qualities therein sung:--

“The action of the poem now begins with the voyage of Beowulf to the

Danish coast. The hero has heard that Hrothgar, the chief of the

Danes, is tormented by Grendel, a man-devouring monster. If Hrothgar’s

warriors sleep in Heorot--the great hall he has built--they are seized,

torn to pieces, and devoured. ‘I will deliver the king,’ thought

Beowulf, when he heard the tale from the roving seamen. ‘Over the swan

road I will seek Hrothgar; he has need of men.’ His comrades urged him

to the adventure, and fifteen of them were willing to fight it out with

him. Among the rest was a sea-crafty man who knew the ocean-paths.

Their ship lay drawn up on the beach, under the high cliff. Then--

“There the well-geared heroes

Stepped upon the stem, while the stream of ocean

Whirled the sea against the sand. To the ship, to its breast.

Bright and carved things of cost carried then the heroes

And the armour well-arrayed. So the men outpushed,

On desired adventure, their tight ocean wood.

Swiftly went above the waves, with a wind well-fitted,

Likest to a fowl, the Floater, foam around its neck,

Till about the same time, on the second day,

The up-curvéd prow had come on so far,

That at last the seamen saw the land ahead;

Shining sea-cliffs, soaring headlands,

Broad sea-nesses. So the Sailor of the Sea

Reached the sea-way’s end.”

_Beowulf_ l. 211.

“This was the voyage, ending in a fiord with two high sea-capes at its

entrance. The same kind of scenery belongs to the land whence they

had set out. When Beowulf returns over the sea the boat groans as it

is pushed forth. It is heavily laden; the hollow, under the single

mast with the single sail, holds eight horses, swords and treasure and

rich armours. The sail is hoisted, the wind drives the foam-throated

bark over the waves, until they see the Geats’ Cliffs--the well-known

sea-nesses. The keel is pressed up by the wind on the sand, and the

‘harbour-guard, who had looked forth afar o’er the sea with longing

for their return’--one of the many human touches of the poem--‘fastens

the wide-bosomed ship with anchoring chains to the strand, lest the

violence of the waves should sweep away the winsome boat.’... At the

end of the bay into which Beowulf sails is a low shore, on which he

drives his ship, stem on. Planks are pushed out on either side of

the prow; the Weder-folk slipped down on the shore, tied up their

sea-wood; their battle-sarks clanged on them as they moved. Then they

thanked the gods that the war-paths had been easy to them.... On the

ridge of the hill above the landing-place the ward of the coast of the

Scyldings sat on his horse, and saw the strangers bear their bright

shields over the bulwarks of the ship to the shore. He rode down,

wondering, to the sea, and shook mightily in his hands his heavy spear,

and called to the men--”

“Who are ye of men, having arms in hand,

Covered with your coats of mail. Who your keel afoaming

O’er the ocean street thus have urged along.

Hither on the high sea!”

* * * * *

“Never saw I greater

Earl upon this earth than is one of you;

Hero in his harness. He is no home-stayer,

‘Less his looks belie him, lovely with his weapons.

Noble is his air!”

_Beowulf_, ll. 237-247.

“Beowulf replies that he is Hrothgar’s friend, and comes to free

him from ‘Grendel, the secret foe on the dark nights.’ He pities

Hrothgar, old and good. Yet, as he speaks, the Teutonic sense of the

inevitable Wyrd passes by in his mind, and he knows not if Hrothgar

can ever escape sorrow. ‘If ever,’ he says, ‘sorrow should cease from

him, release ever come, and the welter of care become cooler.’ The

coast-guard shows them the path, and promises to watch over their ship.

The ground rises from the shore, and they pass on to the hilly ridge,

behind which lies Heorot.”

“The History of the Early English Literature” takes us into other

pleasant places. Here are two or three specimens of the riddles of

the old bards, and in riddle and saga we get most vivid pictures of

the life and thoughts, the ways and words of the forefathers whom we

are too ready to think of as ‘rude,’ but who are here portrayed to

us as gentle, mild, and large of soul; men and women whom we, their

posterity, may well delight to honour.

I. Here is Cynewulf’s Riddle of the Sword.

“I’m a wondrous wight for warstrife shapen;

By my lord beloved, lovelily adorned:

Many coloured is my corslet, and a clasping wire

Glitters round the gem of death which my wielder gave to me:

He who whiles doth urge me, wide-wanderer that I am,

With him to conquest.

Then I carry treasure,

Cold above the garths, through the glittering day;

I of smiths the handiwork! Often do I quell

Breathing men with battle edges! Me bedecks a king

With his hoard and silver; honours me in hall,

Doth withhold no word of praise! Of my ways he boasts

‘Fore the many heroes, where the mead they drink.

In restraint he lulls me, then he lets me loose again,

Far and wide to rush along; me the weary with wayfarings,

Cursed of all weapons.”

_Riddle_ xxi.

II. The helmet speaks:--

“Wretchedness I bear;

Wheresoe’er he carries me, he who clasps the spear!

On me, still upstanding, smite the streams (of rain);

Hail, the hard grain (helms me), and the hoar-frost covers me;

And the (flying) snow (in flakes) falls all over me.”

_Riddle_, lxxix. 6-10.

III. The horn speaks:--

“I a weaponed warrior was! now in pride bedecks me

A young serving man all with silver and fine gold,

With the work of waving gyres! Warriors sometimes kiss me.

Sometimes I to strife of battle, summon with my calling

Willing war-companions; whiles, the horse doth carry

Me the march-paths over, or the ocean-stallion

Fares the flood with me, flashing in my jewels--

Often times a bower maiden, all bedecked with armlets,

Filleth up my bosom; whiles, bereft of covers,

I must, hard and headless, (in the houses) lie!

Then, again, hang I, with adornments fretted,

Winsome on the wall where the warriors drink.

Sometimes the folk fighters, as a fair thing on warfaring,

On the back of horses bear me; then bedecked with jewels

Shall I puff with wind from a warrior’s breast.

Then, again, to glee feasts I the guests invite

Haughty heroes to the wine-- other whiles shall I

With my shouting, save from foes what is stolen away,

Make the plundering scather flee. Ask what is my name!”

_Riddle_ xv.

We do not say a word about the literary value and importance of Mr.

Stopford Brooke’s great work; that is duly appraised elsewhere. ‘There

is nothing like leather,’ and to us here all things present themselves

as they may tell on education. Here is a very treasure-trove.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] “History of Early English Literature,” by Stopford A.

Brooke, 2 vols. Macmillan & Co.

CHAPTER XV

_IS IT POSSIBLE?_

The economic aspects of the great philanthropic scheme[14] which

brought timely relief to the national conscience before the setting in

of the hard winter of 1891, are, perhaps, outside our province, but

there are educational aspects of it which, we are in some measure,

bound to discuss. In the first place, the children in many homes hear,

“I do not believe that”--it is possible for the leopard to change

his spots. ‘General’ Booth’s scheme brings this issue before us with

startling directness, and what the children hear said to-day at the

table and by the fireside will probably influence for all their lives

their attitude towards all philanthropic and all missionary endeavour.

Not only so, but we ourselves, who stand in some measure _in loco

parentis_ to the distressed in mind, body, or estate, are compelled to

examine our own position. How far do we give, and work, for the ease of

our own conscience, and how far do we believe in the possibility of the

instant and utter restoration of the morally degraded, are questions

which, to-day, force themselves upon us. We must be ready with a yea or

a nay; we must take sides, for or against such possibilities as should

exalt philanthropic effort into a burning passion. The fact is, this

great scheme forced a sort of moral crisis upon us.

Whether or no the scheme commends itself to us for its fitness,

seasonableness, and promise, one thing it has assuredly done: it has

revealed us to ourselves, and that in an agreeable light. It has been

discovered to us that we, too, love our brother; that we, too, yearn

over “the bruised” with something of the tenderness of Christ. The

brotherhood of man is no fancy bred in the brain, and we have loved our

brother all the time--the sick, the poor, the captive, and the sinner,

too; but the fearful, and unbelieving, and slothful amongst us--that

is, the most of us--have turned away our eyes from beholding evils for

which we saw no help. But now that a promise of deliverance offers,

more adequate, conceivably, than any heretofore proposed, why, the

solidarity of humanity asserts itself; our brother who is bruised is

not merely near and dear; he is our very self, and whoso will ease and

revive him is our deliverer too.

The first flush of enthusiasm subsides, and we ask, Are we not, after

all, led away by what Coleridge calls the “Idol of Size”? Wherein does

this scheme differ from ten thousand others, except in the colossal

scale on which the experiment is to be tried? And perhaps we should

concede at the outset that this hope of deliverance is “the same,

only more so,” as is being already worked out effectually in many an

otherwise sunless corner of the great vineyard. Indeed, the great

project has its great risks--risks which the quieter work escapes.

All the same, there are aspects in which the remedy, because of its

vastness and inclusiveness, is new.

Hitherto we have helped the wretched _in_ impossible circumstances, not

_out of_ them. Our help has been as a drop in the bucket, reaching to

hundreds or thousands only of the lost millions. Even so, we cannot

keep it up; we give to-day, and withhold to-morrow; worse than all,

our very giving is an injury, reducing the power and the inclination

for self-help. Or, do we start some small amateur industry by way of

making our people _independent_? This pet industry may sometimes be

a transparent mask for almsgiving, and an encroachment upon regular

industries and the rights of other workers.

Now and then is a gleam of hope, now and then a soul and body snatched

into safety; but the hardest workers are glad of the noise of the

wheels to keep the eternal _Cui bono?_ out of their ears. There is so

much to be done, and so little means of doing it. But this scheme--what

with the amplitude of its provisions, what with the organisation and

regimentation it promises, the strong and righteous government, the

moral compulsion to well-doing--considering these, and the enormous

staff of workers already prepared to carry it out, the dreariest

pessimist amongst us concedes that General Booth’s scheme _may_ be

worth trying. “But,” he says, “but----

DO WE BELIEVE IN CONVERSION?”

Everything turns on the condition the originator wisely puts first.

There is the _crux_. Given money enough, land enough, men enough, fully

equip and officer this teeming horde of incapables, and some sort

of mechanical drill may be got through somehow. But, “when a man’s

own character and defects constitute the reasons for his fall, that

character must be changed and that conduct altered if any permanent

beneficial results are to be obtained.” The drunkard must be made

sober; the criminal, honest; the impure, clean. Can this be done? is

the crucial question. Is it possible that a man can emerge altogether

out of his old self and become a new creature, with new aims, new

thoughts, even new habits? That such renovation is possible is the

old contention of Christianity. Here, and not on the ground of the

inspiration of the sacred text, must the battle be fought out. The

answer to the one urgent question of the age, What think ye of Christ?

depends upon the power of the idea of Christ to attract and compel

attention, and of the indwelling of Christ to vivify and elevate a

single debased and torpid human soul.