Note 17 — THOUGHTS ON THE EDUCATIONAL QUESTION. (continued 2)

The Church as such ought to employ the schoolmaster, it has been argued, in virtue of the divine injunction, ‘Search the Scriptures:’ what God commands men to do, it is her duty to enable men to do. The argument is excellent, we say, so far as it goes; but of perilous application in the case in hand. It is the Church’s duty to teach those to read the Scriptures, who, without her assistance, would not be taught to read them. But if by teaching Latin, arithmetic, algebra, and the mathematics to ten, she is incapacitating herself from teaching twenty to read the Bible; or if, by teaching twenty to read the Bible who would have learned to read it whether she taught them or no, she is incapacitating herself from teaching twenty others to read it, who, unless she teach them, will never learn to read it at all; then, instead of doing her recognised duty in the matter, she is doing exactly the reverse of her duty––doing what prevents her from doing her duty. Let the Free Church but take her stand on this argument, and straightway her rectors, her masters in academies, and her schoolmasters planted in towns and populous localities, to teach the higher branches, become so many bars raised by herself virtually to impede and arrest her, through the expense incurred in their maintenance, in her proper work of enabling the previously untaught and ignorant to read the word of God, in obedience to the divine injunction.