THE EDUCATION LEAGUE AT BIRMINGHAM. T HERE can be no manner
of doubt but that the character and language of the Education League this week at Birmingham is by far the most formidable threat to the Govern- anent, and especially to one of the ablest statesmen it contains, _Mr. Forster, that has yet been launched against them. The Dissenters who constitute its chief strength are resolute, united, and enthusiastic. They imagine they have got hold of a principle, though they are afraid to carry it out with any- thing like the logical consistency of the Baptist Union. They do not as yet profess to threaten the central grant to the Denominational schools,—which is not tenable for a moment by men who say they would rather go to prison than pay a rate of which some small proportion might go to paying the fees of destitute children in denominational schools. Men who feel to burden on their conscience as to the like application of their taxes, but do feel that burden as to this application of their rates, are either too subtle-minded for " such crea- tures as we are in such a world as the present," or are making political capital out of a distinction without a difference,—ready to become political martyrs when poli- tical martyrdom may succeed, though declining that role in the very same cause when it is known that political martyrdom would be a failure. Still, this happy modera- tion, which restricts the rhetorical bursts of willingness for martyrdom to questions affecting rates, though it is no bad sign of the sagacity of the party, must not be taken as im- plying any deduction from its practical strength and spirit. So far as political union and determination go, there is no doubt but that Liberal Members of Parliament will be called upon in many a constituency to show open hostility to a Government which does not grant the Dissenters' demands. And it must depend greatly on the political incidents of the text Session,—the temper of the people a few months hence ie never calculable,—whether something like a hundred Liberals will not walk out of the House on some critical ques- tion in which defeat would mean a change of ministry.
Now this being confessedly the state of the case, let us -assume, what it is not unreasonable to assume, that the Non- conformists can succeed in ejecting the Government and installing some other, perhaps a Derby-Disraeli Government, in its place, and consider what they will gain for their own most -earnestly-prized ends by the whole operation. First, as regards even their own immediate strategy, it is but too obvious, on the very face of the speeches at Birmingham, that the League is obliged to begin its new campaign by virtually suppressing, or at least keeping entirely in the background, the one demand on which at the outset they were most wisely and eagerly bent,—the demand for compulsion. Nothing could be more remarkable than the change of tone on this point at Birmingham. Mr. Dixon, whose ability as the exponent of the League we have often had occasion to -admire, and who has certainly not a little of the sagacity of the statesman as well as the passion of the popular representa- tive in him, is so clearly aware of the strength of Mr. Forster's case for giving destitute parents, liable to be com- pelled to send their children to school, as liberal alternatives in the discharge of that duty as possible, that, being com- mitted to refuse all such alternatives by the hard-and-fast line of the League, he is compelled to lower most remark- ably his tone about compulsion, and even whittle it away into something which, for an indefinite time, at least, is to be purely " nominal."And this is the more remarkable that Mr. Dixon, while lowering his own tone on the subject, expressly states that the public feeling in favour of compulsion is rapidly growing. The first Bill introduced to amend the Act of 1870 would certainly, he said, include provisions for applying com- pulsion all over the country ; but he went on, "the only ground for apprehension was the fear Test the authorities should enforce the penalties authorized by the Act with too great harshness. No greater injury could be inflicted on the cause of education than the adoption of such a course. For ,snany years to come, that is, until the public mind has become accustomed to compulsion, the penalties attached to non-attendance should be enforced only in case of the grossest neglect of parental duty, and even then the first fines inflicted ought to be merely nominal." And the subject of compul- sion in the discourses of other League orators was " con- spicuous by its absence." Now we have no doubt that Mr. Dixon is exceedingly wise in setting the demands of the League on this head in a much lower key than formerly, seeing that what it has now set its heart upon is the sweeping of all desti- tute children into the Board schools,—where these are within reach, which very often they will not be,—whatever parents' objection to them may be. Doubtless, if this demand be granted, it will be essential, indispensable, to wink very hard indeed at all neglect of parental duty short of "the grossest," and to inflict only nominal' fines even on offenders of the worst description. It would be simply impossible to fine an Irish Catholic widow in any sense other than " nominal " for her parental fear of heresy for her child. Where such a feeling was known to exist, School Boards would be very apt,—and wisely apt,—to wink so vigorously at parental neglect of all but the very grossest sort, that the compulsory powers would soon be as nominal as the " first fines." This, then, is the first result of the new strategy. The League is softening its tone as to its own most important demand ; and if it is to go on in its present line of advance, it is quite right in thus soften- ing it. Still, the leaders of the League must be sensible of a certain mortification in lowering their attitude on the most essential of all the points of their original programme. For the purpose they have now in view, they must lighten the ship, —even at the expense of the most valuable part of the cargo. But next, suppose them successful in both driving the Go- vernment from office, and in persuading any Government that succeeds it that unless it succumbs to the demands of the Dissenters, it too will go in its turn. What do they hope for, then ? Do they seriously hope, with Mr. Trevelyan, that "a mighty wave of enthusiasm " would carry a Ministry bent on establishing a secular national system over every obstacle in its way ? Where is the evidence that there is any national en- thusiasm at all for secular education ? In all the School Board elections,—in the London elections especially, which were elections by ballot, the constituencies being extremely wide,—there was no vestige of the popularity of secular education. Secularists hardly dared come forward as candi- dates, and only in the rarest cases were elected. A large and enthusiastic League can be created out of extremely meagre elements of popular favour. Does the League suppose for a moment that any Government which might come into power in the hope of getting Nonconformist support would venture, say, to withdraw the central grant from denominational schools, and so compel the latter either to commit suicide or merge themselves in the Board Schools ? Why, they do not even pro- pose it themselves as yet, though a great deal of their language and all the logic of their movement positively demands it. But if they do not, as they do not, expect as much as this, they do no doubt hope for a Government which shall repeal the discretionary power conferred in Clause 25, and authorize only the remission of fees for poor chil- dren at Board Schools,—so putting an end, as they are sanguine enough to hope, to the religious contro- versies in School Boards. And yet some of the League speeches descant on the controversies excited by the question of the sort of religious teaching, apart from catechism and formula, which the Board itself is to authorize ; and declare that these are paralyzing the educational energy of the country ; and undoubtedly, if Nonconformists of the League type, who are at heart for a purely secular united education, are to be found on School Boards, we should expect this controversy to be quite as hot as the other. Bat this controversy can only be nettled in the League's sense by the secular system, so that they would have turned out a Government on a minute and comparatively insignificant point of a system which their principle requires them entirely to supplant, without having either the courage to acknowledge, or the popular support to achieve, the necessary substitute. Until they can get that " great wave of popular enthusiasm " of which Mr. Trevelyan dreams for a purely secular system, the policy of the League is a mere fragment and an anachronism. When they have achieved what alone they now venture to propose, they will have achieved only this—that they will have mutilated a plan that has cohesion of one kind, without daring to substitute any that has cohesion of another kind.
And then, again,what sort of hope have they that any Govern- ment they could substitute for the present one would be pliant to their purpose ? Do they expect a Conservative government to strike at the root of all religious education ? Do they expect to get a Fawcett government which would do so ? Or do they expect to get Mr. Gladstone back again with secular education inscribed upon his banner ? The first two anticipations are obviously pure dreams. The last is conceivable only on con- dition they could convert the country to their programme, of which as yet there is not the faintest sign. What is the political use, then, of turning out the Government first, and entering on the agitation which alone could bring any result out of such a step afterwards ? What the Birmingham Reformers are aiming at is the deliberate suspension of all moderate and earnest efforts to work the Act which has actually passed, in the hope of passing a quite different Act,—one that, if they are very successful in their work as agitators, might conceivably be possible ten or fifteen years hence, though it is quite likely that it would then be even less possible than it is now. We should find no fault with the Birmingham League if its chiefs proposed only to do all in their power to prepare the country for secular education, and in the meantime determined to work provisionally under an Act the drift of which they dislike. But it is a mere dog-in-the- manger policy to concentrate their whole force on opposing a minute detail of the Act,—one in perfect harmony with its whole idea and scope,—in the hope of embarrassing and turn- ing out the Ministry which passed it, when they are not pre- pared, and know they are not prepared, to bring forward any general scheme which the country would for a moment listen to, in its place, and when the Act, even if altered as they now propose, would thereby only be made lopsided and far less work- able as a general measure than it is, without being in any way conformed to the abstract views which are at the basis of this agitation. Let the Nonconformists do all in their power to convert the country to their views if they will. But in the meantime, it would be only that common political fairness which we expect from men of all parties, not to paralyze and embarrass the operation of a system which they cannot pretend at present to replace.
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