Secular education

“ Secular education had been introduced into primary schools, and in some places—as, for instance, Lombardy, in 1820—the government demanded a certain amount of secular knowledge from the candidates for rabbinical positions. ”

“ Let it say, then, what amount of secular education it wants for all the children of the land, and is willing to pay for, and, so far as Catholics are concerned, it can have it, and of as good quality, to say the least, as it can get in purely secular schools, and along with it the religious education, the most essential to it as well as to the souls of all. ”

“ In a passage on page 27, the distinction between Secular instruction and Secularism is explained, in these words:—"Secular education is by some confounded with Secularism, whereas the distinction between them is very wide. Secular education simply means imparting Secular knowledge separately—by itself, without admixture of Theology with it. ”

“ For here, after he has claimed credit for his church as the champion of a secular education, he tells the Congress that secularism is one of the great dangers of the age, against which the church must fight with all her strength. “The battle with secularism has to be fought out.” It must be fought “by the church, and eminently by our own church. Our duty therefore is to fit ourselves for the encounter, and we must do this with the cause of religion, undertaking in its breadth and embracing all branches of religious, spiritual, and ethical culture.” ”

“ You believe in a mere secular education, and proclaim your views with no uncertain voice. I, who am convinced that a mere secular education would ruin the country, had to oppose you, and had to deal with your personal attitude to the whole matter. ”

“ The people at so early a day had not advanced so far as they have now, and did not dream of divorcing secular education from religion. The schools were intended to give both religious and secular education in their natural union, and there was no thought of the feasibility of separating what God had joined together. The Bible was read as a class-book, the catechism was taught as a regular school exercise, and the pastor of the parish visited the schools and instructed them in religion as often as he saw proper. ”

“ The education in their religion is very good, very thorough, not only in precept, but in practice; for in the monastery you must live a holy life, as the monks live, even if you are but a schoolboy.
But the secular education is limited. It is up to the standard of education amongst the people at large, but that is saying little. ”

“ It is impossible to rely upon secular education for the saving of the nation; we must make it a Christian education as well.
Look at the influences of a merely secular education as seen in biography and history. What has the highest secular education done for men? It has made them simply one-sided, imperfect specimens of manhood, deformed and dwarfed in some of those most essential characteristics that give a man influence here, and [346] happiness hereafter. A man like Hume could defend suicide. ”

“ It is as much [99] bound to consult the spiritual end of man, and to obey the law of God, which overrides all other laws, as is the individual.
We, of course, deny the competency of the state to educate, to say what shall or shall not be taught in the public schools, as we deny its competency to say what shall or shall not be the religious belief and discipline of its citizens. We, of course, utterly repudiate the popular doctrine that so-called secular education is the function of the state. ”

“ I say, then, that just here the work of this Association comes in. However much may be done by others, however much a secular education may attempt to accomplish, it can never cover the ground that is absolutely necessary. We have a secular education in the North, and it is doing much, but it has never done a religious work ”

“ It is precisely these purely secular schools, in which all education is divorced from religion—from the faith, precepts, services, and discipline of the church, as well as education combined with a false religion—that we oppose. Nor will this solution satisfy the more respectable Protestant denominations, as is evident from the tenacity with which they insist on reading the Bible in the schools. They do not believe any more than we do in the utility, or even practicability, of divorcing what is called secular learning from religion. ”

“ I wonder when I hear the strange limitation sometimes placed upon the moral power of what is called secular education. We have in our service that vast literature of power whose influence on the character by acting on the emotions none can measure. ”

“ Since the State has determined that the secular education provided in sectarian schools serves the legitimate state interest in the education of its citizens, it is contended that state aid solely to the secular education function does not involve the State in aid to religion. ”

“ Take the several branches of so-called "secular education," and we find that each bears in the strongest manner the impress of the "positive" spirit. If there is any idea that is excluded more rigorously than any other from the whole compass of ordinary scholastic studies it is the idea of the supernatural. No secular history would be read in our schools to-day, or in the schools of any enlightened community, in which the fortunes of nations were represented as controlled by special divine intervention. ”

“ The advocates base their arguments upon their belief that no system of education which ignores religious teaching can be effective or complete. Their opponents declare that it is unjust to call upon the teachers of a secular education to give instruction in religion, or for the State to, in any way, subsidise the various religious denominations or to supplement their efforts in this particular direction. ”

“ What confuses this issue and leads even highly intelligent religious persons to advocate secular education as a means of rescuing children from the strife of rival proselytizers is the failure to distinguish between the child's personal subjective need for a religion and its right to an impartially communicated historical objective knowledge of all the creeds and Churches. ”

“ Although strongly in favour of religious education, he thought that the university would provide secular education for sons of dissenters and others, while their religious wants could be otherwise supplied. ”

“ That where, owing to existing methods of denominational education, it was necessary for the State to make the various sects its allies to effect the common object of secular education, it should deal to all denominations even-handed justice. ”

“ Catholics, agreeing with very many enlightened and zealous Protestants, believe that secular education, administered without religion, is not only vain, but exceedingly pernicious; that it is fast undermining the Christian faith of this nation; that it is rapidly filling the land with rationalism; that it is destroying the authority of the Holy Scriptures; that it is educating men who prefix "Reverend" and affix "D.D." to their names, the more effectually to preach covert infidelity and immorality to Christian congregations ”

“ Should it appear that secular education is the object mainly aimed at, then we would say it has just as much right to live as there is reason for the work it is doing. But if, on the other hand, it should appear that the regeneration of men, and the founding of pure and intelligent churches, is its central thought and aim, and that all other instruments in its hands are but tributary to this, then we would say it has just as much right to live as there is force and authority in the last command of our ascended Lord. ”

“ If children are taught to regard evidence as a proper test of truth in matters of secular interest, and to disregard that principle in connection with their religious instruction, it follows as a matter of course that a line of distinction must be drawn between secular and religious education. ”

“ The former emphasis on the difference between religious education and secular education is passing. The foundation of teaching is being lifted into the religious realm. Education is aiming to develop men and women to their highest possibilities for their own sakes and for the sake of their contribution to the welfare and progress of society. The National Educational Association is a potent factor in establishing a strong belief in the worth of religion in education. ”

“ R. The secular school must replace the Church, with the difference that while religious indoctrination perpetuates superstition and divine authority, the sole purpose of secular public education is the gradual, progressive initiation of children into liberty by the triple development of their physical strength, their minds, and their will. ”

“ The fact is, that while a large number of people agree that purely secular education is to be deplored, no feasible scheme can be propounded for introducing religious instruction into the State schools which will satisfy the demands of the Catholics. ”

“ To succeed, they should be combined with a broad secular education, with a full recognition of the real impulses of modern life, and an effort to inculcate sound principles rather than respect for ceremonies and dogmas, about which the Christian sects themselves are never in unison. The native religious and moral codes should be studied, and all that is good in them—generally there is a great deal of good—should be retained ”

“ The religious education given to children by the priest possesses defects and even dangers which it is important to set in a clear light, and which explain the gradual decline in secular education. An opinion regarded as divine is an opinion which is as unfit for purposes of education as for purposes of science. The great opposition which obtains between religion and philosophy—in spite of their outward resemblances—is that the one is seeking and that the other declares that it has found ”

“ There are, for instance, some, as yet happily few in number, who, in the maze of confusion and Babel-like discussions of sectarians and false teachers turn their faces away in hopeless, helpless uncertainty, and suggest that religion of every name and kind must be excluded and the Deity himself ignored in our public schools, so that public education shall be secular ”

“ That their church is profoundly solicitous for the secular education of her people is too manifest for dispute, since she has, by the instrumentality of her various religious orders, established universities, colleges, academies, and innumerable preparatory schools in every great city, and throughout the rural districts of the country, wherever it was possible to do so. ”

“ If people realised how much extended secular instruction is needed, they would be impatient with the obstruction of it by contending sects. Children want industrial education to fit them for emigrants. ”

“ We cannot, however, refuse here to recognize that teachers have a substantially different ideological character from books. In terms of potential for involving some aspect of faith or morals in secular subjects, a textbook's content is ascertainable, but a teacher's handling of a subject is not. We cannot ignore the danger that a teacher under religious control and discipline poses to the separation of the religious from the purely secular aspects of pre-college education. ”

“ And, after all, if we concede to the State power and wisdom to single out 'duly constituted religious' bodies as exclusive alternatives for compulsory secular instruction, it would be logical to also uphold the power and wisdom to choose the true faith among those 'duly constituted.' We start down a rough road when we begin to mix compulsory public education with compulsory godliness. ”

“ It is almost as vain to teach religion without secular knowledge, as it would be presumptuous and profane to impart secular knowledge without religion. Nature and grace alike ordain that they should go together, and on this principle the Poor School Committee, or Council of Catholic Education, invariably acts. ”

“ The sooner workmen understand that Christianity has no commercial value, the better for them.
Why should purely Secular instruction be regarded with distrust, when purely religious education does not answer? It does not appear in human experience that purely religious teaching, even when dispensed in a clergyman's family, is a security for good conduct. It is matter of common remark that the sons of clergymen turn out worse than the sons of parents in other professions. ”

“ When the education system was established it was decided that the secular principle was the complement of the compulsory one, for, as children of all sects and of no sect are compelled to attend school, it was thought that they should not be forced to receive religious instruction which would be repugnant to the beliefs of their parents. ”

“ Many of us are content to do without religious education altogether, and are satisfied with what we not only call secular but make secular, in the sense in which we understand the word, i.e., entirely limited to the uses of this visible world. ”

“ Considerable misapprehension appears to exist as to our views with respect to religious instruction in the Government institutions. Those institutions were founded for the benefit of the whole population of India; and, in order to effect their object, it was, and is, indispensable that the education conveyed in them should be exclusively secular. The Bible is, we understand, placed in the libraries of the colleges and schools, and the pupils are able freely to consult it. ”