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Mitchell, P. Chalmers (Peter Chalmers), 1864-1945

"Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work"


"The boys and girls for whose education the School Boards have to
provide, have not merely to discharge domestic duties, but each
of them is a member of a social and political organisation of
great complexity, and has, in future life, to fit himself into
that organisation, or be crushed by it. To this end it is surely
needful, not only that they should be made acquainted with the
elementary laws of conduct, but that their affections should be
trained, so as to love with all their hearts that conduct which
tends to the attainment of the highest good for themselves and
their fellow-men, and to hate with all their hearts that opposite
course of action which is fraught with evil."
He then proceeded to point out the distinction between the affection
which is called religion, and the science which is called theology,
and, without entering into the question as to whether the latter were
or were not a true science, he insisted on the danger of a confusion
between the two.
"We are divided into two parties--the advocates of so-called
'religious' teaching on the one hand, and those of so-called
'secular' teaching on the other. And both parties seem to me to
be not only hopelessly wrong, but in such a position that if
either succeeded completely, it would discover, before many years
were over, that it had made a great mistake and done serious evil
to the cause of education.


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