Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/609

Rh a note, adding here that the Catholic Church all along taught the Bible in such school editions. – There is a third consideration which prompts Catholics to oppose the reading of the Bible as advocated by most Protestant educators. It is the following question: Is the Bible to be read with or without comment? If with comment, is this Protestant or Catholic? Evidently either Catholic or Protestant would be offended. Therefore, without comment and explanation! Now this reading is almost useless, as the young will understand very little of the meaning of the passage. Disraeli, the English statesman, has justly ridiculed this practice. "I cannot imagine," he says, "anything more absurd than that a teacher should read 'without note and comment,' as it is called, a passage from the Bible, and that children should be expected to profit by it. The 'without note and comment' people in their anxiety to ward off proselytism, seem to have forgotten that, if there is any book in the world which demands more explanation than another, it is the Bible. And so, if nothing else is possible