TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE NEW EDUCATION BILL.
WE cannot profess any very great liking for the Government's new Education Bill. Putting the most favourable construction upon it, we can hardly describe it as more than a crude and ill-balanced sketch which may possibly, assuming not only good- will but patience on both sides, be converted into, we cannot say an ideally satisfactory settlement, but a settlement which might in 'all the difficult and per- plexing circumstances prove workable. All depends upon whether the Government are really willing to meet the reasonable wishes of the minority, or whether, on the contrary, they intend to take the line that minorities were made to be trampled upon by majorities, and that, having got the power in their hands, they mean to use it and to do what they will with their own. In a word, if the question is to be approached in the spirit displayed in Sir George White's article in the February Contemporary- Zir George White is the leader of the Nonconformist group in the House of Commons—there is little hope of a settlement. Once again those who insist upon their full pound of flesh because they assert that it was "so nominated in the bond" at the last General Election will find that in the end they will get nothing. In a matter like that of education it is abolutely necessary to recognise the rights of the minority. Further, it must be remem- bered that it is no use merely to recognise such rights when they seem to the majority sound and reasonable. Concessions to be worth anything must also be made on points where the majority think that there is really no necessity for concessions, or where, in their opinion, "the minority are anxious and alarmed about nothing."
When we say that the question whether the Govern- ment's Bill can be accepted as a basis of compromise depends upon their willingness to make concessions to the wishes of the minority, we do not advocate in any sense a surrender to the extremists in the Church Party. We fully admit that it would be unreasonable to expect the Nonconformists or the Liberal majority in the House of Commons to allow the Bishop of Birmingham or Lord Hugh Cecil to dictate the provisions of the new Bill. What we ask for is something very different. It is that the Government shall agree to terms which will carry with them the moderate section of the Church Party, and especially the laity of the Church, the men whose views were heard in the last stages of the former Education Bill. The history of the Bill of 1906 shows that this body of moderate Church opinion was not only not discouraged by, but met with very considerable sympathy from, the leader and spokesman of the Church, the Arch- bishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop is essentially a moderate man,—a man who desires peace on the education question, who realises and gives weight to the claims of the Nonconformists, who takes the national and not the sectarian view of the Church (a view which involves a considerable sacrifice of exclusive Church interests), and finally a statesman who has resolutely refused to condemn simple Bible teaching as contrary to the doctrines of the Church, and has risked a good deal of opposition from his own friends and followers by frankly admitting that in its best forms teaching under the Cowper-Temple Clause can provide sound religious education. We are convinced, then, that the Government will encounter no enemy to compromise in the Archbishop of Canterbury, but, on the contrary, will find him ready to make con- siderable sacrifices to arrive at a just settlement. In order, however, to get Church laymen and the more moderate-minded portion of the Bishops and clergy to work for a settlement of the education question, it is absolutely essential that the Government should show that they have freed themselves from the domination of the violent, illiberal political Nonconformists,—the men who, though Christians themselves, would rather see a secularised schoolmaster dominating a secularised school than run the risk of some theological doctrine of which they do not approve being taught to children whose parents have the most absolute legal right to withdraw them from any such teaching.
To put the matter in the plain terms which will be understood by Parliamentary politicians : the moderate element among Church of England laymen, the element which, if we may venture to say so without egotism, is largely represented by the Spectator, and which, it is quite safe to assert, has never received, and will never receive, any discouragement. from the Archbishop of Canterbury, holds the balance at the present moment. If the Government will not modify their measure, but insist on their pound of flesh, they will force that moderate element to range itself with the extremists, and to offer a complete and absolute resistance to the Bill. If, on the other hand, the Government will make it clear that they have not adopted the pound-of-flesh policy, and do not mean to trample upon the minority, but will show them some mercy and. make some real concessions, then, even though the moderate section would not be wholly satisfied with the amended Bill, they would almost certainly, in the interests of peace, give it their support. If the bill obtains that support, it will, we are confident, find a passage through the Lords, for the Lords, though strong Churchmen, are laymen, not ecclesiastics, and do not want to use the Bill in any sense as a political engine.
It is not for us, nor indeed is it possible at the present moment, to go in detail into the concessions which must be made in order to render the Bill acceptable to moderate Churchmen. We may, however, mention in outline one or two of the safeguards which will have to be insisted upon if Churchmen are to agree to what we confess is, on the face of it, a great act of confiscation in the single- school areas. The Church, in view of her national position and of her desire to meet the wishes of the Legislature wherever possible, might be willing to consent to such prima- facie confiscation if the primary obligations and duties of the Charch were effectively safeguarded. but not otherwise. Chief among the safeguards which will be demanded by moderate Churchmen is, we feel sure, some plan under which those who will be called upon to hand over the Voluntary schools will obtain assurances that religious teaching will be conducted in those schools by teachers who are duly qualified to give such teaching. This, in our opinion, is the key to the whole question. It is by no means necessary, however, to jump to the conclusion that those who ask this are asking for tests in the ordinary or objectionable sense. To get an assurance that a man is qualified to give religious education it is by no means essential to ask him his particular creed, or to require him to pledge himself to a particular formula. All that is requisite is that some body or committee of earnest and religiously minded men should satisfy themselves that the schoolmaster or schoolmistress does possess the necessary qualification. How, is this information to be obtained ? It appears to us that it would be quite easy to form a committee of good citizens, lay and clerical, acting under the local education authority, whose business should be, not, as we have said, to impose any tests on teachers, but to ascertain their qualifications for giving religious instruction. Let us say at once that we do not contemplate a clerical or Church of England body. It would indeed be far better that Nonconformists and Nonconformist clergymen should be represented on the body in question. They would give weight and strength to its deliberations. What we want is a body—a "Board of Triers," to use the Cromwellian phrase—whose special duty would be to consider the question of qualification to give religious instruction, and not to let it be pushed aside or forgotten in the pressure of secular educational concerns. If the trustees and guardians of Voluntary schools could feel that the sacred obligations involved in their offices would be carried on by a properly established body, we believe that they might very generally consent to an arrangement like that contemplated in the new Bill, if not without many searchings of heart, at any rate without feeling that they were betraying their trust.
The next safeguard—and this is one to which we ourselves attach great importance—is the withdrawal of the disability which is imposed by the new Bill on all teachers in schools which do not contract out,— that is, the disability to give denominational instruction. This disability seems to us a very real injustice, and one which can never be maintained. Our contention here is immensely strengthened by the provision (a pro- posal to which per 88 we object) that the denominational facilities shall only apply out of school-hours. Thus the Government Bill proposes not only to place a heavy dis- ability upon the teacher, but to place that disability upon him in his own time. Surely this is a constraint on con- science and a demand for their pound of flesh by the extreme Nonconformists which, if insisted on now and in hot blood, will be deeply regretted. by them when they look back upon the matter in future years. No good can ever come of refusing to let a man do religious work which his conscience tells him he ought to do if he possibly can. That is a capital objection ; but there is another of almost equal importance. The disability tends in the direction of secularising the teacher. But that, in our opinion, is the very last thing which the State has a right to encourage, or ought to encourage. It must neither banish the Bible and religion from the school nor secularise the mind and attitude of the teacher, nor must it set him, as it were, an example of diverting his mind from spiritual matters. We must spiritualise, not secularise, the teacher if we are to regard our teachers as builders and makers of good citizens, not mere conduit-pipes through which the three "H's" are to dribble into the children's minds.
We might enumerate many other points upon which we think further concessions are necessary. For example, care must be taken in the case of the Voluntary schools that a hostile local authority shall not be able to penalise them on the one side, or prevent them from exercising their contracting-out rights on the other. Then care must be taken that the scholars and teachers in contracting-out schools shall not be debarred from any educational advantages which are provided out of the rates and by public authorities. No parent who sends his child to a contracting-out school ought to feel that thereby he is placing the child in a school whose scholars will, as it were, be viewed with enmity and prejudice by the local education authority. Again, we bold that the grant to the contracting-out schools should be made more generous. Lastly, we do not see why the facilities contemplated under the new Bill should not be extended, instead of being treated as if they were something bad in themselves and only given as a lesser of two evils. We should also very much like to see in the Bill some clearer and sounder recognition of the rights of parents. Mr. McKenna. very properly dwelt upon those rights, but we see little in black and white in the Bill to bear out his oratorical patronage of the parent. It is to be remembered in this context that if proper recognition were given to the parent and the parent's rights in the matter, a good deal would have been done to conciliate the opinion of the High Church Party. They have always dwelt strongly on parental rights, and in doing so have, we believe, secured a great amount of popular sym- pathy, for the country has been shocked and annoyed by the paradoxical attitude of certain extreme Nonconformists on this point. It will take a long time to persuade English- men that the parent is the last person who ought to express an opinion as to what religious education shall be given to his child. These are points, however, on which we only desire to touch very generally to-day. The essential object of what we have written above is to make clear our opinion that the new Bill cannot pass, and ought not to pass, unless the Government are prepared to make concessions to moderate Church opinion, and to abandon the position that minorities must expect to be trampled on. If, however, the Cabinet will make such concessions, then there is no reason why the Bill should not prove a foundation on which a national settlement may be built up and secured.
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