TOWARDS EDUCATIONAL PEACE AND THE CENSUS.
[To T/12 EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—As a Liberal and a democrat, I would bring up children in the religion professed by their parents. As a manager of schools, Provided and non-Provided, I can see no difficulty about this if I am allowed to ask the parent what religion he professes. Accordingly I welcome generally the proposals of the Educational Settlement Committee as set forth in the pamphlet entitled " Towards Educational Peace." The key- note of the scheme is the parents' wishes. "It will be observed" (last paragraph of Section III.) "that all these proposals rest upon the principle that the decision as to the -religious instruction which a child should receive, and the religious influences under which its education should be carried on, ought to lie with the parents of the child." One would suppose that it followed that parents should be asked what their wishes are. But for the reasons given for not having a religions Census, our Nonconformist friends will not ask this simple question. " The Committee prefer to entrust to a responsible body the duty of arriving at a careful judgment upon the situation, leaving to the body concerned the choice of the means best calculated to enable it to ascertain the wishes of the parents." Can you, or any of your readers, suggest by what means parents' wishes can be consulted, if they are not to be asked what their wishes are P—I am,
Previous page
