Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/242

 232 S. E. Baldivin tion is incomplete unless religion be taught as part of it, added to the belief that the best form of religion, or we might say perhaps the only form of true religion, is that of which their own church is the expression. Holland has profited by our experience, and since 1857 has for- bidden religious instruction in her public schools. The Catholics were not content to have it given by Calvinists, nor Calvinists to let it come from Catholics. Similar considerations, fortified by an in- fluence substantially unfelt in Holland — that of socialism, have now thoroughly secularized education in France, but only after the most bitter contests. In both English and Canadian politics the same question is now the dominating one. The position of Russia in this respect has been one of the cir- cumstances weakening her as a great power as well as leading directly to revolutionary change. The church has had the full direction of the public schools. For the first three years, it kept the children simply learning prayers by rote, except for a little drill towards the close in mental arithmetic. No instruction in reading was required. The product of such a system is not simply popular unintelligence. It is an unreal quietude, easily passing into a blind fury, under the influences of a century like ours. Religious tests for ordinary offices have been largely abolished, even in monarchical governments, but whenever in these there is a state church, the monarch, as its head, remains bound to it by vows so solemn as to prove the conviction of the people that nothing can safely be yielded there. The coronation oath of King Edward stood for the same dogmatic rigidity in its reference to the papacy as did that of an opposite kind imposed on his niece, the Princess Ena, before she could be Queen of Spain. ^ There is no civilized nation in recent years where the state sup- ports the church, in which there has not been so much dissatisfaction with that policy as to inspire some public opposition. In many, the ' This was " I, recognizing as true the Catholic and apostolic faith, do hereby publicly anathematize every heresy, especially that to which I have had the misfortune to belong. I agree with the Holy Roman Church, and profess with mouth and heart my belief in the Apostolic See, and my adhesion to that faith which the Holy Roman Church, by evangelical and apostolical authority, delivers to be held. Swearing this by the sacred Homoousion, or trinity of the same sub- stance, and by the holy gospels of Christ, I do pronounce those worthy of eternal anathema who oppose this faith with their dogmas and their followers, and should I myself at any time presume to approve or proclaim anything contrary hereto, I will subject myself to the severity of the canon law. So help me God. and these his holy gospels."