THE TENDENCY OF MODERN TEACHING.
By C. M. S.
ONE of the most deplorable features of modern times is the frivolous, unreal, and even skeptical conception of life which we meet so frequently, especially on the part of those who have but recently come to the estate of manhood and womanhood—who have but recently graduated from our higher schools. This unreal, air-castle conception of life is carried into their married life, when they have settled in homes of their own, and becomes a fomenter of all kinds of domestic discord. The wife or the husband is not like the pen-creation of the story-book, which the other had adopted as his or her ideal, and all dissimilar traits are marked, remarked, and magnified, till separation comes in one way or another. But the delusion does not end in the sundering of these sacred ties. It is not aimed at that alone. The very transactions of every-day life, the purpose of life, the object in living, the conception of God, and the work of the Gospel—all are colored, disarranged, metamorphosed, by this lens of unreality thru which the young of to-day are taught to look. The mirage is taken for the real, and the real is shrouded in a mist of unreality designed by Satan to confuse, blind, and destroy. One of the chief feeders of this dangerous stream is the fictitious literature which the pupils of our public schools are compelled to read and assimilate. Many thoughtful parents of all shades of religious belief, and some who have none, realize the grave danger in this modern method of giving pupils a “literary education.” All the sophistry, mythology, and carnal philosophy of the ancients are bundled into the curriculum of our schools, till the minds of the children in this their most plastic period are stuffed and clogged with these worse than useless husks, and their fermentation is breeding the bacilli of insanity, suicide, recklessness, domestic discord, skepticism, and the wild theorizing of theosophy and evolution. The tendency is recognized and deplored by many who feel their utter helplessness against it, knowing that the purpose of this increasing flood of evil is to turn that beneficial institution, the free public school, away from its legitimate work, and make it a source of real harm. Principals and teachers have it in their power to check and turn back this tide of evil that is rising so rapidly and menacingly. They are susceptible to the pressure of parental influence, and many of them realize the hurtfulness of the present system—realize that to fill the mind in its formative period with this class of thought will give an unwholesome tinge to the whole life; but it is in the curriculum, and they teach it. Were a healthy public sentiment arrayed against it, these teachers would be strengthened and encouraged to grapple with the evil; but the tide is strong, and the opposition unorganized. On the other hand, there are religious journals whose purpose is supposed to be to advance the cause of God in the earth, that are throwing the weight of their influence in favor of this fiction-education, both in the school and in the home. The following will give an idea of how one such journal (the Congregationalist) looks upon the matter:— “Modern students of child nature are teaching us to guide a child’s reading according to the stages in his mental development. For instance, they tell us there is a time when the sense of humor is strongest; and a period when the youthful mind revels in rhyme and rhythm; and another when it demands tales of imagination. Certain it is that there are books which ought to be read for the first time in childhood, growing up without which the child has missed his heritage. We know persons who have reached adult life without having read The Pilgrim’s Progress or Robinson Crusoe. Their loss is simply irreparable. The allegory of Bunyan may be better understood, and the English of De Foe better appreciated by mature minds, but they have lost childhood’s power of complete surrender to a story; and they can never read these great books with the simplicity and faith of the child heart. The same is true of The Arabian Nights, The Alhambra, and many other legendary tales. Take, too, such a book as Alice in Wonderland. Its nonsense is irresistible to a child, while it may seem an incoherent and senseless jumble to an adult who reads it for the first time. With parents and teachers rests the responsibility of placing these classics in the hands of their boys and girls before it is too late.” Of course the whole Pandora’s box of heathenism is not advocated in this single quotation, but the whole weight of the paper’s influence is thrown in that direction. Let us look at the quotation more closely: “There is a time when the youthful mind revels in rhyme and rhythm;” that is, a time when the poetic instinct is keen and bright. What a grand opportunity to teach the child the wonders of his Creator in the poetry of the Psalms and Job! But what is done for him?—He is fed on the metered mythology of paganism. There is another period “when it demands tales of imagination.” It is not necessarily “tales of imagination,” but tales, stories of people and things—and what more absorbing stories, and helpful stories, can be given than those which the Lord has left on record concerning His dealings with His people? What is the Lord’s own instruction concerning the teaching of the children? “But teach them [that is, God’s law and the story of His dealings with His people] thy sons and thy sons’ sons.” Deut. 4:9, 10. “And ye shall teach them [that is, God’s words] your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.” Deut. 11:19. Is this narrowness? If so, it is the narrowness of infinite wisdom. There are some things that are better narrow than broad; as, for instance, a leak in a dyke, a break in a dam, or the spaces between the bars of a tiger’s cage. It is wise to be narrow toward evil, but foolish to be narrow toward God; and he who fills his mind with the folly of this or ancient times is broadening toward the evil and narrowing toward the good. God makes no provision, He sets apart for us no time, for the study of folly or fiction. But what is the proposed menu for the intellectual table of the child at this period?—Such stories as Robinson Crusoe, the Arabian Nights, the legends of the Alhambra, and Alice in Wonderland whose “nonsense is irresistible to a child.” When placed by the side of what the Bible has to offer, how weak and insipid is all this collection of fickle fancy and folly! Bunyan’s allegory is good; it is the storied experience of Christian trials and victories; but what is there in the rest of the assortment which a conscientious Christian parent or teacher can place before the child? God directs that the child be instructed in His ways and words. The world would have the child instructed in the irresistible nonsense and folly with which this and past ages abound. How does this irresistible nonsense compare with the irresistible wisdom which the Lord commands the parent to give the child? Alice in Wonderland seems irresistible to a child, but a senseless jumble to an adult. Now, whatever it seems to the healthy mind of the adult, that is what it is; and the one who fills the mind of his child with a “senseless jumble” is guilty before God. He is not only starving the intellect of his child, but he is turning that intellect away from the love of God and the love of truth to the love of pagan philosophies, follies, and irresistible nonsense. “With parents and teachers rests” a greater responsibility than that of “placing these classics in the hands of their boys and girls.” It is the responsibility of doing nothing of the kind, but of giving them the true food for all the various periods of their9life. God has in wisdom placed those periods in the child life, and He would have parents and teachers supply them with “meat in due season;” for “what is the chaff to the wheat?”