a note, adding here that the Catholic Church all along taught the Bible in such school editions.[1] – There is a third consideration which prompts Catholics to oppose the reading of the Bible as advocated by most Protestant educators. It is the following question: Is the Bible to be read with or without comment? If with comment, is this Protestant or Catholic? Evidently either Catholic or Protestant would be offended. Therefore, without comment and explanation! Now this reading is almost useless, as the young will understand very little of the meaning of the passage. Disraeli, the English statesman, has justly ridiculed this practice. "I cannot imagine," he says, "anything more absurd than that a teacher should read 'without note and comment,' as it is called, a passage from the Bible, and that children should be expected to profit by it. The 'without note and comment' people in their anxiety to ward off proselytism, seem to have forgotten that, if there is any book in the world which demands more explanation than another, it is the Bible. And so, if nothing else is possible
- ↑ "Es darf doch hier auf Grund einer reichen Erfahrung nicht unerwähnt bleiben, dass namentlich die Bibel in ihrer ursprünglichen Gestalt eine grosse Gefahr für die Sittenreinheit der Jugend ist. Es ist mehrfach konstatiert worden, dass die Onanie (self-abuse) in männlichen und weiblichen Schulen durchaus zunächst sich an die Lesung von Bibelstellen angelehnt hat, deren Auswahl und Kenntnis sich traditionell unter der Jugend fortpflanzten. Man kann dieser Gefahr insofern leicht entgegentreten, als die Herstellung von Schulbibeln schon so erfolgreich geschehen ist, dass man nicht begreift, wie man noch immer die ungekürzte Bibel den Schülern in die Hände geben kann." Schiller, Handbuch der praktischen Pädagogik (Leipzig, 1894, 3. ed.), pp. 171-172.
