utterances calling for the restoration of the Bible to the schools as literature, as a means of literary culture. The National Educational Association that met in Minneapolis in the summer of 1902, adopted the following resolution: "It is apparent that familiarity with the English Bible as a masterpiece of literature is rapidly decreasing among the pupils in our schools. This is the direct result of a conception which regards the Bible as a theological book merely, and thereby leads to its exclusion from the schools of some states as a subject of reading and study. We hope and ask for such a change of public sentiment in this regard as will permit and encourage the English Bible, now honored by name in many school laws and state constitutions, to be read and studied as a literary work of the highest and purest type, side by side with the poetry and prose which it has inspired and in large part formed."[1] Such a study is, of course, practically useless from the religious point of view; moreover, and this is a more serious objection against the scheme advocated by the National Educational Association, it is wrong in principle and mischievous in its consequences. It is a deplorable degradation of the sacred volume to put it on a par with profane writings, be they of the highest type, as the dramas of Shakespeare or the poems of Tennyson. This scheme would tend to destroy entirely the reverence due to the Bible. Besides, no literary study is possible without explanation of the contents of the works studied; but it is absurd to attempt an explanation of the contents of
- ↑ The Literary Digest, August 2, 1902. – See also the Rev. Thomas B. Gregory, in the New York American and Journal, January 11, 1903.
