ous education, the
spiritual "powers that be" (and also, I am told, some of the Local
Education Authorities) have decreed that the schools under their
jurisdiction shall be subjected to a yearly examination in
"religious knowledge" at the hands of a "Diocesan Inspector," or some
other official.

To one who has convinced himself, as I have, that a right attitude
towards the thing known is of the essence of knowledge, and that
reverence and devotion--to go no further--are of the essence of a
right attitude towards God, the idea of holding a formal examination
in religious knowledge seems scarcely less ridiculous than the idea
of holding a formal examination in unselfishness or brotherly love.
The phrase "to examine in religious knowledge" has no meaning for me.
The verb is out of all relation to its indirect object. What the
Diocesan Inspector attempts to do cannot possibly be done. The test
of religious knowledge is necessarily practical and vital, not formal
and mechanical. Even if I were to admit, for argument's sake, that
the information with which we cram the elementary school child
between 9.5 and 9.45 a.m. had been supernaturally communicated by God
to Man, my general position would remain unaffected. For experience
has amply proved that a child--or, for the matter of that, a man--may
know much theology and even be "mighty in the Scriptures," and yet
show by his conduct that his religious sense has not been awakened,
and that therefore he has no knowledge of God; just as we have seen
that a child may know by heart all arithmetical rules and tables, and
yet show, by his helplessness in the face of a simple problem, that
his arithmetical sense has not been awakened, and that therefore he
has no knowledge of arithmetic.

The time given to religious instruction is, to make a general
statement, the only part of the session in which the children are
being prepared for a formal _external_ examination. That being so, it
is no matter for wonder that many of the glaring faults of method and
organisation which the examination system fostered in our elementary
schools between the years 1862 and 1895, and which are now being
abandoned, however slowly, reluctantly, and sporadically, during the
hours of "secular" instruction, still find a refuge in the Scripture
lesson. Overgrouping of classes, overcrowding of school-rooms,
collective answering, collective repetition, scribbling on slates,
and other faults with which inspector