TOPICS OF THE DAY.
NEW STARTING-POINT FOR CHURCH AND STATE EDUCATION.
THE new Minute on Education has had somewhat of the antici- pated effect in restoring "harmony" within the circle of the cle- rical promoters of education ; but it is too prospective and unsub- stantial in its nature to alter the actual working of the official plan for the humbler school education, unless it be followed up by far- ther measures of the same kind; which there is no reason to anti- cipate. That Archdeacon Denispn and the National Society can henceforth proceed without discord is so far satisfactory; but it would not compensate for any serious derogation from the unseo- tarian character of the education under the Committee of Privy Council : and if there is no reason to fear such derogation, we must regard the new minute as a brutum fulmen, intended only to operate cumulatively with other electioneering manoeuvres of the present Ministry.
It might, however, have one effect both real and happy. Un- substantial as it maybe, it will have to be revised when we shall have a Parliament once more at leisure ; the subject of education under the Privy Council therefore will be thrown loose ; and if they pleased, the members of the clergy might take that oppor- tunity of revising their own position and starting afresh from a new point. If they could perceive the opportunity before it be too late, we believe that many of them would rejoice to improve it. We know that many clergymen, sincerely desirous for education among the working classes, feel a difficulty not the less practical and respectable because it is personal ; but it arises in a great de- gree from the confusion of the terms in which the subject is dis- cussed ; and the difficulty might disappear before no inconsiderable number if they were to examine somewhat more analytically the real state of the facts, and the real nature of the want of which they are conscious.
Three obstructions principally impede the action of moral in- structors on pupils of the humbler classes : the slow and unduetile state of the mind, arising from the want of movement and develop- ment; the want of common ideas, and therefore the want also of a common language between instructor and pupil—for an elementary instruction in the very names of the things to be spoken of inci- dentally becomes needful at every step. The clerical instructor cannot make the slightest commencement in the attempt to train the uneducated, without feeling a wish that such elementary in- struction had been imparted. There is an idea, however, that re- ligions instruction, so vitally necessary, must form an essential part of all " education "; and here, as we all know, is the point at which confusion is introduced : pions clergymen insist that it is better to have no education at all than to risk its being imparted without religion. Others, who are not quite so untrusting in the power of religion to vindicate itself wherever its ministers are zealous, and to vindicate itself all the better if the field be better prepared for it, still say, conscientiously and reasonably from a certain point of view, that they cannot support a system of educa- tion not mixed, as they think it ought to be, with religion. Now, the clergymen of this last class overlook two important facts,—that it is possible to carry on combined operations with a division of employments ; and that the actual state of society in respect of religions affairs renders that process the only form ef- fective for education in England. Persons who avow the difficulty which we have just described seem to regard " education " as a process one and simple ; although they must know better when they turn their own minds to the analysis. They know the injury which may be done by associating exalted ideas with trivialities ; and however they may applaud the principle of referring all created things to the Creator, they would not insist on rehearsing the parallel to the Mussulman cry, " In the name of the Prophet— figs I" They say that it is necessary to " accompany " all in- struction with Divine references ; and yet, we presume—if we may be permitted for a single instant to illustrate the triviality of such an union—in teaching arithmetic, they would not think it neces- sary, or even desirable, to teach the pupil that two and two make four by permission of Divine Providence. It is true that the property of numbers which that rule expresses could not exist ex- cept under the law of the creation, and therefore could not be without the Divine permission ; but, after all, the rule only ex- presses a human perception of a fact ; and probably we are only stating a truism when we say, in regard to any special law within the working of the creation, that sufficient unto the law is the force thereof ; so that he who is in any respect further- ing the operation of that law, simply and without looking back, is most obediently ministering to the Divine Ruler whose law it is. Such a consideration a priori, justifies our instinctive sense that there is a certain officious irreverence in casting back an obtrusive glance to associate every triviality with its stupendous origin. No sane man could teach arithmetic in the style which we have exemplified ; and in regard to arithmetic, therefore, there can be no necessity for an inextricable and direct association of arith- metical with religious tuition. In like manner, there is not a mind advanced by cultivation above a very low and rude state which would not be revolted at the idea of invoking Divine intervention on undertaking the really arduous task of forming the first pot- hooks and hangers. Writing, therefore, as well as arithmetic, may be safely left to a special instructor. The same may be said of tuition in mathematics, hydrostatics ; the same of grammar, Whether vernacular or alien; the same, strictly according to the
principle, of astronomy, inevitably as the vastness of the objects contemplated by that science moves the religious instincts. The grand thing to be secured is the absence of false dogma or contami- nating moral influences. Few clergymen probably would object to the attendance of children at a writing-class in one house, an arithmetio-class in another, a simple reading-,glass in another, and so on with the separate branches of secular instruction. Were these things attained, we should still lack religious in- struction : and here we perceive the true want—we want a school to impart religious instruction. A clergyman cannot desire that religious instruction should be given in a Dissenting or a Romanist form ; nor can he claim to force an Established form upon Dissent- ing or Romanist schools. If he says, You shall have no schools to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, &c., without my doctrine, he simply forbids the existence of schools to teach those things ; a prohibition impracticable in England, unless other religious bodies combine to deny tuition to the laity ; which is not unlike the actual situation. If he says, Let me have all the schools given to me, he asks what is impossible to obtain. But there yet remains a course open to him, which we may mention, not as a matured sug- gestion—though we believe its principle is sound—but as an illus- tration that there is still a way out of the difficulty.
Although not objecting to attendance at special classes, the clergyman might object to a consolidation of such schools, because the instruction given in a consolidated form would be called " qdu- cation." But it would not be so, without the thing needed to com- plete it ; and the practical want would be the same, whether the secular classes were held on separate premises or not—it would be the want of a school to supply religious instruction. It may be said that the church itself ought to be such a school, especially by the help of the sermon : but it could not be maintained that the lecture and sermon, appealing to the average and adult mind of a congregation, can do more than convey recognized or applicate truths, without the accidence or the systematic annotation required for complete instruction. The want would be supplied, however, if a school were created, in connexion with every parish-church throughout the land, specially to teach the doctrines of the Church of England, with all needful auxiliaries to its elucidation, such as Bible history, Church history, and so forth. Less, we believe, the Church is bound not to do ; more she cannot claim without re- voking the liberties already conceded to every other sect. We now perceive that the true and substantial difficulty consists in a want of practical working assiduity on the part of the clergy; and we believe that with such a school in existence, few men in the sacred profession would feel any absorbing anxiety respecting the errors of writingmasters or the false computations of arithmetic. The less, since as yet the Church of England retains its connexion with the Parliament and the Parish, and with all subdivisions of the State, and can still take its share in supervising the morality and fairness of all educational establishments coming within the purview of public authority.
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