Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 15.djvu/374

IV. THE FREEDOM OF THE TEACHER TO TEACH RELIGION. BY FOSTEE WATSON. I PLEAD that instead of shelving the religious problem in schools by effecting their secularisation, the religious pro- blem should be boldly faced. I believe it will have to be faced in the future. For if you recall the names of the great educators you will find that religion in some form or other is behind their best efforts. Vittorino da Feltre in Italy, Dean Colet in England, Luther in Germany, Pesta- lozzi in Switzerland, to say nothing of such modern school- masters as Thomas Arnold and Edward Thring, would not have understood the meaning of education with religion left out. It is no answer to say that these chiefly were concerned with Secondary Schools, and the national problem to-day i& with the Primary Schools. For, why should we not give of our best to the Primary Schools? It cannot be that re- ligion is good for Arnold's Kugby and Thring's Uppingham, but bad for the Primary School. Indeed, it might rather be argued that since Primary Schools often include those children whose parents are less able or less inclined to give a religious training, the need for these children to have the best of religious training is all the greater. I am attracted by the old Platonic a priori argument that all government exists for the interest of the weaker, and I propose now to present the case of religion in the school from this point of view. Plato, it will be remembered, in the Republic, urges that the statesman, in so far as he is a true craftsman in the art of government, will have no other interest to pursue than that of the development of the highest perfection of his art. He will not seek his own self-interest ; still less will he seek to mix up his art with other aims than that of good government as such. He shows what the good governor is by an analogy with the good shepherd. The good shepherd does not fatten his sheep for his own advan- tage : The only concern of the shepherd's art is, How it shall procure what is best for that, of which it is the appointed guardian.