ULTRA SECULARISM.

Manawatu Times, Volume II, Issue 107, 27 October 1877, Page 3

ULTRA SECULARISM.

The following trenchant reim^ris upon ultra secularism itf>tlte Melbourne "Spectator" It appesa'rs that in\. spite 6f the anxious precaution's which lsYe ! been taken to secure $ setie's 6f readingTbooks for our schools which shall he -absolutely empty of all religious ideas, the textbooks nowiised m the State-schools are not yet sufficiently djsinfected of the notion of a G<od. . TJnder a prolonged a"nd ; mie'roscopic examination j tra'ees of a belief m a soul and * moral sense may be* discoyerecl m them. . The 1 books are' moreover absoftfte'ly tainted by hints that the world had a Maker;-; «tn<l there'eiists- »- Being, sotnewhtfre m the universe stf pe'rio r tor Professor Pearson and the Minister of Education. So we are told that the whole system of school -books, is to be chan^ejl once, more, &iid a new effort made to cleanse them from this ppiVpiiotJS tsint. Perhaps I . the only wayto secure the absolutely irreligipils text-books on which our Yictari^n- youth is to -be ■trained-' would-- be to call for tender's f r'dtd. " persons willing to compile . them^ with the provision:" that "only atheistsneed appl^;f and to require as a-further precaution are'sidence of at least seven ye^rs ; m; o%^ of Her "Majesty's gsi-ols^ T &nd ; a' e*el'ti^cate from the Chief Oommissioner of 'Police that the person tendering had never been Known to attend a church or to show the least symptom, .of " possessing a moral sense. 51 If,: m addition to this,' the employment of the letter/a g,o,p, a*n'ywheli'e> itt the book was strictly fpphidden,-. the Minister of Educatroti wculct ihen hsye dofier enough to patisfy even the committee of the Spiritualistic and Association. 'Seriously, however, this anti-religious ardour m education is becoming an; offensive craze N which,is fer^ lifiely to produce a dangerous reaction against-bur whale* existing systeni of public instru'ctton. Eyen those of ■ tts who believe that the State should only concern itself with' secular education may yet feel that this hunt--ing out of the very name of G-od as of something pestilential goes too far. 'Education on the part of the State is: to be non-relijgioutey but net fanatically steti-religious. The petitions of "all the Catholics and the harangues of all the priests m the colony win not do so' much to imperil the' Education Act as the secularistic fanaticism which threatehs to make, the an offence to thec'onscieiice' of tEe Protesta/ht Chur'chJesgenerally.: