Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume II Part 3

First, the general nature and relations of the schools which may come under the Board. Secondly, the amount of time to be devoted to educational purposes in such schools; and Thirdly, the subject-matter of the instruction or education, or teaching, or training, which is to be given in these schools.

[But this, by itself, he continued, would be incomplete. At one end of the scale he advocated Infant schools, and urged a connection with the excellent work of the Ragged schools. At the other end he desired to see continuation schools, and ultimately some scheme of technical education. A comprehensive scheme, indeed, would involve an educational ladder from the gutter to the university, whereby children of exceptional ability might reach the place for which nature had fitted them.

The subject matter of elementary instruction must be limited by what was practicable and desirable. The revised code had done too little; it had taught the use of the tools of learning, while denying all sorts of knowledge on which to exercise them afterwards. And here incidentally he repudiated the notion that the English child was stupid; on the contrary, he thought the two finest intellects in Europe at this time were the English and the Italian.

In particular he advocated the teaching of] "the first elements of physical science"; "by which I do not mean teaching astronomy and the use of the globes, and the rest of the abominable trash--but a little instruction of the child in what is the nature of common things about him; what their properties are, and in what relation this actual body of man stands to the universe outside of it." "There is no form of knowledge or instruction in which children take greater interest."

[Drawing and music, too, he considered, should be taught in every elementary school, not to produce painters or musicians, but as civilising arts. History, except the most elementary notions, he put out of court, as too advanced for children.

Finally, he proposed a list of members to serve on the Education Committee in a couple of sentences with a humorous twist in them which disarmed criticism.] "On a former occasion I was accused of having a proclivity in favour of the clergy, and recollecting this, I have only given them in this instance a fair proportion of the representation.

If, however, I have omitted any gentleman who thinks he ought to be on the committee, I can only a.s.sure him that above all others I should have been glad to put him on."

[That day week the committee was elected, about a third of the members of the Board being chosen to serve on it. At the same meeting, Dr.

Gladstone continues:--

Mr. W.H. Smith, the well-known member of Parliament, proposed, and Mr.

Samuel Morley, M.P., seconded, a resolution in favour of religious teaching--"That, in the schools provided by the Board, the Bible shall be read, and there shall be given therefrom such explanations and such instruction in the principles of religion and morality as are suited to the capacities of children," with certain provisos. Several antagonistic amendments were proposed; but Professor Huxley gave his support to Mr. Smith's resolutions, which, however, he thought might be trimmed and amended in a way that the Reverend Dr. Angus had suggested. His speech, defining his own position, was a very remarkable one. He said] "it was a.s.sumed in the public mind that this question of religious instruction was a little family quarrel between the different sects of Protestantism on the one hand, and the old Catholic Church on the other. Side by side with this much s.h.i.+vered and splintered Protestantism of theirs, and with the united fabric of the Catholic Church (not so strong temporally as she used to be, otherwise he might not have been addressing them at that moment), there was a third party growing up into very considerable and daily increasing significance, which had nothing to do with either of those great parties, and which was pus.h.i.+ng its own way independent of them, having its own religion and its own morality, which rested in no way whatever on the foundations of the other two." [He thought that] "the action of the Board should be guided and influenced very much by the consideration of this third great aspect of things," [which he called the scientific aspect, for want of a better name.]

"It had been very justly said that they had a great ma.s.s of low half-instructed population which owed what little redemption from ignorance and barbarism it possessed mainly to the efforts of the clergy of the different denominations. Any system of gaining the attention of these people to these matters must be a system connected with, or not too rudely divorced from their own system of belief. He wanted regulations, not in accordance with what he himself thought was right, but in the direction in which thought was moving." [He wanted an elastic system, that did not oppose any obstacle to the free play of the public mind.

Huxley voted against all the proposed amendments, and in favour of Mr.

Smith's motion. There were only three who voted against it; while the three Roman Catholic members refrained from voting. This basis of religious instruction, practically unaltered, has remained the law of the Board ever since.

There was a controversy in the papers, between Professor Huxley and the Reverend W.H. Fremantle, as to the nature of the explanations of the Bible lessons. Huxley maintained that it should be purely grammatical, geographical, and historical in its nature; Fremantle that it should include some species of distinct religious teaching, but not of a denominational character. (Cp. extract from Lord Shaftesbury's journal about this correspondence ("Life and Work of Lord Shaftesbury" 3 282). "Professor Huxley has this definition of morality and religion:] 'Teach a child what is wise, that is morality.

Teach him what is wise and beautiful, that is RELIGION!' Let no one henceforth despair of making things clear and of giving explanations!")

[In taking up this position, Huxley expressly disclaimed any desire for a mere compromise to smooth over a difficulty. He supported what appeared to be the only workable plan under the circ.u.mstances, though it was not his ideal; for he would not have used the Bible as the agency for introducing the religious and ethical idea into education if he had been dealing with a fresh and untouched population.

His appreciation of the literary and historical value of the Bible, and the effect it was likely to produce upon the school children, circ.u.mstanced as they were, is sometimes misunderstood to be an endors.e.m.e.nt of the vulgar idea of it. But it always remained his belief] "that the principle of strict secularity in State education is sound, and must eventually prevail." [(As a result of some remarks of Mr. Clodd's on the matter in "Pioneers of Evolution," a correspondent, some time after, wrote to him as follows:--

"In the report upon State Education in New Zealand, 1895, drawn up by R. Laishly, the following occurs, page 13:--'Professor Huxley gives me leave to state his opinion to be that the principle of strict secularity in State education is sound, and must eventually prevail.'"

His views on dogmatic teaching in State schools, may be gathered further from two letters at the period when an attempt was being made to upset the so-called compromise.

The first appeared in the "Times" of April 29, 1893:--]

Sir,

In a leading article of your issue of to-day you state, with perfect accuracy, that I supported the arrangement respecting religious instruction agreed to by the London School Board in 1871, and hitherto undisturbed. But you go on to say that "the persons who framed the rule" intended it to include definite teaching of such theological dogmas as the Incarnation.

I cannot say what may have been in the minds of the framers of the rule; but, a.s.suredly, if I had dreamed that any such interpretation could fairly be put upon it, I should have opposed the arrangement to the best of my ability.

In fact, a year before the rule was framed I wrote an article in the "Contemporary Review," ent.i.tled "The School Boards--what they can do and what they may do," in which I argued that the terms of the Education Act excluded such teaching as it is now proposed to include.

And I support my contention by the following citation from the speech delivered by Mr. Forster at the Birkbeck Inst.i.tution in 1870:--

["I have the fullest confidence that in the reading and explaining of the Bible what the children will be taught will be the great truths of Christian life and conduct, which all of us desire they should know, and that no efforts will be made to cram into their poor little minds theological dogmas which their tender age prevents them from understanding."

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

T.H. Huxley.

Hodeslea, Eastbourne, April 28.

[The second is to a correspondent who wrote to ask him whether adhesion to the compromise had not rendered nonsensical the teaching given in a certain lesson upon the finding of the youthful Jesus in the temple, when, after they had read the verse, "How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" the teacher asked the children the name of Jesus' father and mother, and accepted the simple answer, Joseph and Mary. Thus the point of the story, whether regarded as reality or myth, is slurred over, the result is perplexity, the teaching, in short, is bad, apart from all theory as to the value of the Bible.

In a letter to the "Chronicle," which he forwarded, this correspondent suggested a continuation of the "incriminated lesson":--

Suppose, then, that an intelligent child of seven, who has just heard it read out that Jesus excused Himself to his parents for disappearing for three days, on the ground that He was about His father's business, and has then learned that His father's name was Joseph, had said, "Please, teacher, was this the Jesus that gave us the Lord's Prayer?"

The teacher answers, "Yes." and suppose the child rejoins, "And is it to His father Joseph that he bids us pray when we say Our Father?" But there are boys of nine, ten, eleven years in Board Schools, and many such boys are intelligent enough to take up the subject of the lesson where the instructor left it. "Please, teacher," asks one of these, "what business was it that Jesus had to do for His father Joseph? Had He stopped behind to get a few orders? Was it true that He had been about Joseph's business? And, if it was not, did He not deserve to be punished?"

Huxley replied on October 16, 1894:--]

Dear Sir,

I am one with you in hating "hush up" as I do all other forms of lying; but I venture to submit that the compromise of 1871 was not a "hush-up." If I had taken it to be such I should have refused to have anything to do with it. And more specifically, I said in a letter to the "Times" (see "Times," 29th April 1893) at the beginning of the present controversy, that if I had thought the compromise involved the obligatory teaching of such dogmas as the Incarnation I should have opposed it.

There has never been the slightest ambiguity about my position in this matter; in fact, if you will turn to one paper on the School Board written by me before my election in 1870, I think you will find that I antic.i.p.ated the pith of the present discussion.

The persons who agreed to the compromise, did exactly what all sincere men who agree to compromise, do. For the sake of the enormous advantage of giving the rudiments of a decent education to several generations of the people, they accepted what was practically an armistice in respect of certain matters about which the contending parties were absolutely irreconcilable.

The clericals have now "denounced" the treaty, doubtless thinking they can get a new one more favourable to themselves.

From my point of view, I am not sure that it might not be well for them to succeed, so that the sweep into s.p.a.ce which would befall them in the course of the next twenty-three years might be complete and final.

As to the case you put to me--permit me to continue the dialogue in another shape.

Boy.--Please, teacher, if Joseph was not Jesus' father and G.o.d was, why did Mary say, "Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing"? How could G.o.d not know where Jesus was? How could He be sorry?

Teacher.--When Jesus says Father, he means G.o.d; but when Mary says father, she means Joseph.

Boy.--Then Mary didn't know G.o.d was Jesus' father?

Teacher.--Oh, yes, she did (reads the story of the Annunciation).

Boy.--It seems to me very odd that Mary used language which she knew was not true, and taught her son to call Joseph father. But there's another odd thing about her. If she knew her child was G.o.d's son, why was she alarmed about his safety? Surely she might have trusted G.o.d to look after his own son in a crowd.

I know of children of six and seven who are quite capable of following out such a line of inquiry with all the severe logic of a moral sense which has not been sophisticated by pious scrubbing.

I could tell you of stranger inquiries than these which have been made by children in endeavouring to understand the account of the miraculous conception.

Whence I conclude that even in the interests of what people are pleased to call Christianity (though it is my firm conviction that Jesus would have repudiated the doctrine of the Incarnation as warmly as that of the Trinity), it may be well to leave things as they are.

All this is for your own eye. There is nothing in substance that I have not said publicly, but I do not feel called upon to say it over again, or get mixed up in an utterly wearisome controversy.

I am, yours faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

[However, he was unsuccessful in his proposal that a selection be made of pa.s.sages for reading from the Bible; the Board refused to become censors. On May 10 he raised the question of the diversion from the education of poor children of charitable bequests, which ought to be applied to the augmentation of the school fund. In speaking to this motion he said that the long account of errors and crimes of the Catholic Church was greatly redeemed by the fact that that Church had always borne in mind the education of the poor, and had carried out the great democratic idea that the soul of every man was of the same value in the eyes of his Maker.