Srn,—If it be true that so many of the boys
of the present day go to a public school less instructed in religious matters and knowing less of their Bibles than used to be the case, I venture to say a word for the modern parent, for I believe there is another and very different reason ft r the fact, if fact it is. I cannot believe that the modern mother is more careless than the mother of past generations; but I am sure she has a good many more difficulties to meet. How is she to teach religion `o young children ? bow to explain to them what is to be taken literally in the Bible, and what not? Do we even wish our children's ideal of conduct to be formed on the heroes of the Old Testament? as one of your correspoedents puts it.
for one, do not. The old crude teaching which I, and, I suppose, most of my generation, received from our mothers and cheerfully accepted—pictures of Satan lurking around, always ready to entrap the unwary, and even little children, and consign them to everlasting fire, &c.—did not seem to do
us much harm beyond an occasional bad night ; but could we teach such things now ? And without going to such an extreme case, much that we teach to our children now has only to be contradicted and explained away as the child grows older. I speak as a mother of several sons of very different ages, so that my experience has extended over a good many years, and I know the difficulty I had myself, and how that difficulty grew with years as I grew older myself and saw how narrow and wrong much that I had been taught myself had been. I could no longer teach with the same simple confidence things which I began to feel I could not accept myself literally. There remained always the one Great Example to teach from, and that is all that of late years I felt I could teach. You must remember that we mothers, whether old-fashioned or modern, cannot be theo- logians; but those of us who are most in earnest and most anxious to do our best for our children fear to teach as truths what we know that modern and enlightened men do not believe,—only to have our boys find as soon as they go to school or College that at least half they have learnt at home has to be put aside with Hans Andersen and Grimm. Canon Lyttelton is a man I honour and respect, and Mr. Ford should speak with authority ; but I cannot agree with the former that champagne every night is a usual thing for boys in an ordinary home, or that that is what keeps young men from taking Holy Orders. I do not think any of my sons will take Orders ; but champagne dinners are not responsible, but entirely different reasons,—though lam proud to feel that any one of them would make a good and useful parson. Nor can I agree with the verdict that all boys are dull, and devoid of interest in anything but games. I have seen a good deal of schoolboys and young men, and have found them most keen and ready to be interested in any subject, though I know the English schoolboy at school can be a very unresponsive creature at times. I think a great deal of the exaggerated value put on games and athletics was, at any rate a few years ago, fostered by the masters more than by parents.—I am,
Sir, &c., A MOTHER OF SONS.
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