It is a significant fact in regard to the religious training of the young
in this country, that the most influential leaders of popular education,
especially in its earlier stages of improvement, have been laymen, and
laymen who reject the Augustinian dogma, and all organizations founded on
it. And yet they are men who believe in, and have exhibited by their
example, the great duty of love to God and love to man, in a life of
obedience to the physical, social and moral laws of God.
Meantime, the laws of the land which forbid any exclusive favor to any
religious sect, do, in fact, forbid any religious training in common
schools that conflicts with the common‐sense system. It has been shown
(chapter 39) that the larger Christian sects are all founded, in their
distinctive features, on the Augustinian dogma. This being so, the law
that excludes distinctive sectarian teaching excludes the Augustinian
system.
In regard to smaller sects, not Augustinian, the distinctive doctrine of
the Unitarian creed is such a _unity_ in regard to the Creator as forbids
the idea of more than one divine person who has all the attributes of God.
This, it has been shown in chapter 18, is contrary to the common‐sense
system.
The distinctive doctrine of the Universalist creed forbids the idea of the
perpetuated existence of sinful and miserable beings; this, also, is
contrary to the common‐sense system, as shown in chapter 28. Thus the
chief sects that are not counted as Augustinian or Evangelical, are also
excluded from introducing their distinctive tenets into the common schools
of the people.
Moreover, while the people, in the schools under their control, thus
forbid by law any religious training which conflicts with the common‐sense
system, they permit prayers to God and the use of the Bible, _provided_
the privilege is not used, in opposition to the spirit of the above law,
to introduce distinctive sectarian tenets.
It is also very noticable that in Great Britain the most influential
patrons of popular education, and writers on the training of the young,
have, though members of the established church, vigorously opposed the
Augustinian system. Archbishop Whateley has written a most powerful
argument, and one which none have attempted to answer, in favor of the
common‐sense view of church organization. He also has given all his
influence to the establishment of schools for the people, in which every
parent and child shall, as far as possible, be _free_ in regard to
religious matters.
The beloved and honored name of Arnold, dear to every liberal educator of
every sect and name, has set the example of a religious training that is
based entirely on the common‐sense system. And probably there is not a man
living or dead whose influence has been so extensive in guiding public
opinion on this subject. Without openly denying the articles, or forsaking
the established church, Whateley, Arnold and their associates have warred
on the Augustinian theory and its offsets more energetically and
effectively than any two men that can be named.
Thus, it appears, that the people themselves, and the chief leaders in
popular education, have decided that no teaching that conflicts with the
system of common‐sense shall be introduced into the common schools.