6 DECEMBER 1873, Page 5

THE LONDON SCHOOL-BOARD ELECTION.

I T would seem probable that the Metropolitan School Board

may change all its original atoms in even less time than is assigned for that process to the human frame. We have been told that in all probability no man has at the end of seven years any particle in his bones or tissues which belonged to his frame seven years before. At the end of only three years, there re- main much less than a minority of those atoms of the Metro- politan educational Parliament which were constituents of its body on its first organisation. Even the elections of last week substituted one more new atom than they replaced. There are now twenty-five newly-elected representatives to twenty- four who have taken part in the deliberations of the last Board.

And of these twenty-four, more than one, no doubt, were not members from the beginning, but came in as vacancies arose. This is a rapid rate of waste and nutrition for a body in which it is so important to keep up continuity of _policy,— indeed a collective personal identity—as the School Board of the Metropolis, and the danger of the change is increased by the fact that some of the newly-elected members are elected on the profession of what may be called an extreme line of policy,—Canon Gregory, for instance, in the City, and perhaps the Hon. and Rev. Augustus Legge in Greenwich, being regarded as almost revolutionary denominationalists, while Mr. George Potter in Westminster, and probably others, may be regarded as representing an extreme League policy, untempered as yet by the experience which has taught Mr. Picton, and -others of the same views who sat on the old Board, the wisdom, if not the necessity, for moderation. It would seem, indeed, that a compact party of some seventeen mem- bers represent the extreme Right, or ultrasectarian view, on the new Board, imperfectly balanced by a smaller number of extreme Left or Birmingham Leaguers, who wish to intro- duce the secular principle pure and simple; while fortunately a majority, or at all events a minority so much larger than that of either of the extreme parties as to be able to enforce its view, may be regarded as moderates, who will do all in their power to carry out the excellent working compromise agreed upon by the first London School Board. But unless the collective sense of the Board speedily predominates over the cliquish and sectarian feelings called forth in the contest, it will be by no means an easy thing to carry on the great work of London Education in the spirit in which it has been so admirably begun. Our present object is to help on, if we can, by one or two hints, that continuity of policy and administration which is of the very essence of success ; and we believe that we can offer suggestions which may be of some value for that purpose.

First, though we should be very sorry to advocate the claims of an individual to the Chairmanship of the Board on any grounds but those of public policy, we cannot doubt that if the eminent services of the former Vice-chairman, Mr. Reed, M.P. for Hackney, were frankly recognised by the new Board, it would do a vast deal at the very outset both to ensure the continuity of policy on which so much depends, and to heal, by anticipation, any sectarian soreness which the elections may have caused. Mr. Reed is a Dissenter, but as Lord Lawrence has acknowledged, he has contributed very materially, by his energy and practical ability, to the success of the old Board, and he is the repository of all its administrative and formal traditions. To prefer Lord Napier and Ettrick simply because he is a Peer who has occupied high positions in the public service and is a Churchman, would be to prefer a capacity tried only under very different conditions indeed and with the adventitious advantages of social prestige, to capacity specially tried and trained for the position in question ; and as for the difference in religious profession, if that is to weigh on a -School Board against such claims as Mr. Reed's, then there is indeed reason for what the violent Birmingham Leaguers have asserted, that these contests turn upon the grade of social caste which certain religious professions imply, and not upon principles of education. The Denominationalist party would do more to increase the fair influence of their views by an act of frank impartiality of this kind in electing the man who is evidently far the best fitted by experience and know- ledge for the work before the Board, than they could do by any sectarian manceuvre and victory. The Denominationalists must remember that all that is open to them as Denomina- tionalists under the Act is to avail themselves of the oppor- tunities of approved Denominational Schools for those children who come under the Twenty-fifth Clause, to prevent building new Board Schools where it is not really certain that new schools are wanted, and, if they are silly enough to do so, to appoint 'schoolmasters to the Board Schools who, without using any denominational catechisms or formularies, will teach strictly denominational theology without the aid of such formularies. Of the last-mentioned stroke of policy we are not afraid, as the Denominational party is composed of High Churchmen and Roman Catholics, with perhaps one Wesleyan, and almost certainly could not agree what type of sectarian teaching to impress upon the Board schoolmasters, so that in this respect we feel very confident that the moderation of the Old School Board will be still adhered to. All they can do, then, as Denominationalists, is practically confined to deprecating needless competition between new Board Scheols and existing Denominational Schools, and to facilitating, in any way they can, the admission of untaught children to the better class of schools. And even these are points of policy which they cannot carry with a high hand ; after all, they must depend on educational considerations in the first place, and on sectarian considerations only in the second ; they will therefore gain influence instead of losing it by every proof that they are actuated by an impartial desire for the effi- ciency of the School Board, and they cannot prove this more effectually than by at once electing a chairman who is not of their camp, but who has shown by his zeal and energy that he is a true friend to education, and who alone, perhaps, of them all has fully enjoyed the experience requisite for conducting the discussions of the Board with a wise regard for precedent and for the lessons of the past. We say that Mr. Reed has alone fully enjoyed that experience, because he alone has had an official relation to the Board from the first ; but we do not at all mean to deny that there are probably other members of the Board, especially Mr. W. H. Smith, M.P., if the great demands on his time rendered it any way possible for him to accept such an office, who could fill it with very great credit, and certainly with more prestige of authority than any new member, however able, could command.

But even if the new Board should not be inclined to follow what we hold to be this sound and wholesome advice to elect the Chairman who can best bind together the first and second Educational Parliaments of London, we would warn them in the most earnest way not to fall into the error, which, we fear, was committed in one or two of the recent canvasses, of making an unreal economical cry subservient to an unconfessed denomi- national end. No worse result for the party of denominational education could be imagined than any materials for the verifica- tion of the charge always brought against them by the League, —that they care nothing for the education of the people, com- pared with what they care for the propagandism of their creed. If once this is believed of them, their influence in the country will wane rapidly ; and it will be believed of them, if they make up their minds to suffer very inferior sectarian schools to fill the place which ought to be occupied by good Board schools. They have now, for the first time, we are happy to observe, on the School Board, a lady and a gentleman who have themselves passed through training schools, and know what good teaching ought to be. Miss Chessar, elected by so large a majority in klarylebone, was, we are told, trained at the Home and Colonial Institution in 1851 ; and Mr. Heller, elected for Lambeth, at the Cheltenham Training College in 1858. These elections ought to add very considerably to the technical capacity Of the Board, and we should be very glad to see more elections of the same kind. But our present point is this,—that the School Board, especially with such aid as it now has, has no excuse for determining ques- tions of educational policy on any but purely educational grounds; that, if extraneous considerations of propagandist creed are permitted to interfere with the simple question whether the schools in any district are large enough and good enough for the children of that district, then, whether the Deno- minationalists interfere under the nominal disguise of anxiety for the ratepayers' pocket, or any other, the result will be to aid and popularise the policy of the Birmingham League, instead of to defeat it. Of course, financial considerations ought to weigh, and we doubt not, will weigh, seriously with this School Board, as with the last. But they must not be put forward as a cloak for other and quite different considerations, with which they have no real connection. This will be even lees ex- cusable now than during the last three years. The new Board will have the benefit of the advice of regular experts in judging of the efficiency of the existing Denomi- national schools, and we trust that to them may be referred questions which might otherwise be debated in a party spirit. It is always a great advantage when a question can be removed out of the region of prepossessions and pre- judices to that of impartial judgment, on grounds to which both parties are bound to defer. And it seems to us that if ever the strife between Denominationalists and Secularists begins to rage on the question whether the existing sectarian schools in any district are or are not efficient without new Board schools, it will be possible by referring to those members of the Board who are best able to tell what efficient teaching is, to settle the contest without ever fighting the battle at all on the lower and unfairer ground. All England will watch with anxiety the example set by the second Metropolitan School Board on its first assembling, for upon the wisdom of its procedure depends in very great measure the educational progress of the whole kingdom.