To be in power; that is the game of
politics. What can you expect from such people?"
He said to me, "Men outside politics are beginning to see what education
involves. It involves the whole man, body, mind, spirit. I do not think
you can frame an intelligent definition of education without coming up
against religion. In its simplest expression, education is a desire to
escape from darkness into light. It is fear of ignorance, and faith in
knowledge. At the present time, most people have escaped from darkness
into twilight; a twilight which is neither one thing nor the other. But
they will never rest there. The quest of the human spirit is Goethe's
dying cry, Light--more Light. And it is from these men that I look to
get a nobler system of education. They will compel the politicians to
act, perhaps get rid of the present race of politicians altogether. And
when these humble disciples of knowledge, who are now making heroic
efforts to escape from the darkness of ignorance, frame their definition
of education, I am sure it will include religion. The Spirit of Man
needs only to be liberated to recognise the Spirit of God."
Most people, I think, will agree with Dr. Jacks in these opinions; they
are intelligent and promise a reasonable way out of our present chaos.
For many they will shed a new light on their old ideas of both religion
and education. But some will ask: What is the Unitarian Church doing to
make these intelligent opinions prevail?
Dr.
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