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RELIGION IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.

BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS,

DELIVERED BEFORE

THE GRADUATING CLASS

OF

ANTIOCH COLLEGE,

YELLOW SPRINGS, OHIO,

JUNE 20, 1860.

BY

THOMAS HILL.

BOSTON:

LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY.

1860.

unjust in compelling them to pay taxes to sustain such schools? The writer of this article is a Protestant of the most radical typ does not stop with Martin Luther, but who protests against all obst

, Sept. 21. Gift Anonymous.

CAMBRIDGE:

Allen and Farnham, Printers.

ADDRESS.

I HAVE long felt that the greatest need in our systems of education is the need of well-established principles in regard to the selection of a course of studies. Could we determine upon sure grounds, what are the fundamentals of a liberal education, and in what proportion they ought to occupy the student's mind, the theory of instruction would have a firm basis, and we could rapidly advance towards perfection in the practice. In the hope of stimulating more effective laborers to work upon this problem, I have frequently recurred to it upon public occasions, treating of various parts of it according to the demands of the hour.

I propose, to-day, to take up the inquiry, To what extent and in what form should Religion enter into the scheme of public instruction? Shall our public schools be thoroughly secularized, and religious instruction be reserved exclusively for the Sunday school and the pulpit? Or shall our schools become sectarian, and indoctrinate the pupils in the tenets of that

unjust in compelling them to pay taxes to sustain such schools The writer of this article is a Protestant of the most radical does not stop with Martin Luther, but who protests against all

sect to which a majority in the school district may chance to belong? The questions of Bible or no Bible, of King James' or the Douay version, now agitating in some parts of our country the public mind, are but parts of this greater question, whether in our schools we are with the "positivist" to ignore God, with the Atheist to deny his existence, with the Pantheist to dream that we ourselves are God, or with the Hebrew, to reverence and adore Him.

Religious questions, being by universal consent the most vital of all, naturally engender most heat in their discussion. In proportion as a subject appeals to deeper and more vital parts of our nature, we feel the more interest in opinions upon it, and cling with more tenacity and earnestness to our own conclusions.

This is evident, not only on a comparison of religious questions with others, but on a comparison of any two branches of the great hierarchy of sciences, or indeed, even upon a comparison of the different classes of study in each branch; as I might readily illustrate by all the great contests upon disputed questions in mathematics, physics, history, politics, or religion. The heat of the battle has always been proportioned to the elevation of the subject in the hierarchy, or to the relation which it bore to metaphysical and religious questions. Those questions which have referred only to space, to what is external to the soul, have never elicited heat in the dis

cussion, even when they have been incapable of solution. The dispute has in such cases sometimes seemed interminable, but it has not aroused any feeling, at least not any to be compared with the intense zeal of the politician, the fierceness of metaphysicians, or the bigoted fury of theologians.

I am therefore aware that in approaching this question, of the place which religion should hold in a course of public instruction, I am approaching dangerous ground. It may be impossible for me to consider it without myself betraying a feeling that may seem inconsistent with impartial judgment, or else exciting feelings in others which will prevent some from seeing my errors if I err, and others from acknowledging the force of my conclusions if I arrive at truths.

Suffer me, therefore, to leave, at first, the path in which I propose finally to approach those conclusions; and to discuss, for a few moments, the question, To what extent and in what, form should geometry enter into a course of public instruction? By thus going to the opposite end of the scale of sciences, and discussing the question with reference to the simplest and most elementary science, we may arrive, perchance, coolly at principles which will be found applicable at every point of the scale, and which may guide us safely when we approach the more exciting question of religious instruction.

Shall we admit geometry into the ordinary course of

unjust in compelling them to pay taxes to sustain such schools? The writer of this article is a Protestant of the most radical tyl does not stop with Martin Luther, but who protests against all obs

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