Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/384

 370 FOSTEE WATSON : iution was described as untrue because of its conflict with early scriptural treatment of the creation. The doctrine of the ascent of man from low origin was stigmatised as impious. Now, the school-teacher cannot settle controversial, religious and scientific questions. But he can himself show his rever- ence for all sincere effort of will in the search for settlement. To do this, it is necessary for the educationist-teacher to have freedom to emphasise this aspect, and it is the business of religious training to present a fearless and encouraging atti- tude to all real effort to find truth in every direction. Even in the case of Dr. Colenso, had any occasion arisen for re- ferring to it, the schoolmaster might reasonably have claimed the right to stand unmoved before his boys in the ' shameful panic ' (as Dr. Hunter recently described the attitude of the religious world towards that Christian critic of the Bible) ; not that he should have necessarily accepted his views but on account of Colenso 's call for justice to the native tribes, and the great Bishop's ' passion for truth ' and readiness to take pains in the search for it. Those were positive merits of personality and deserved a recognition which they did not always receive. Such teaching of respect for the search for truth is from its nature selective. If it can be correlated with other work, such as history or literature, so much the better. Eeligious instruction is not merely biblical instruc- tion. I cannot think that any teacher would wish to omit from his teaching the Lord's Prayer, the Beatitudes, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and the Prodigal Son and the main incidents in the life of Jesus. Whatever is done in early teaching of religion, it is clear that biographical and concrete forms are usually preferable to any abstract state- ment of systematic truth. Also, in choice of lessons, it is well to remember that so much in the Bible is beautiful as literature, that such passages as the teacher feels especially to rest lingeringly in his memory he will naturally wish to bring before his class, not authoritatively, but suggestively. Another good method is to let the class themselves choose what they would like as a lesson, if necessary describing beforehand several topics in a general way, so that they can judge as to the likelihood of interest. I claim freedom for the teacher, to choose what he will teach as freely as the topics in the history lesson. As an example, however, I may say with my own boys when I was a school-teacher I never tired of bringing before the boys the twenty-eighth chapter of Job, on the pricelessness of wisdom one of the match- less pieces of translated literature in the English Bible. Nor is it necessary for the teacher to confine himself to