The opposition to the passage of the Education Bill has
during the week been as persistent as ever, with the result that though there has been progress, it has been very slow. The matter of most importance settled during the week has been the acceptance by the Government of Colonel Kenyon-Slaney's amendment, which secures to the laity of the Church of England a position of control over the religious education given in Church schools. This does not, of course, mean that the clergyman's influence will be in any way excluded from the school. In normal cases, and where the clergyman has the confidence of the lay Churchmen of his parish, his influence will be as great as ever; but where he has forfeited that confidence by extreme action of any kind, the one-man power which in certain instances—we admit, in very few—has been so greatly misused will cease. The gain to the Church of England as a whole by this arrangement will be of untold value. Nothing has injured her influence more, or has tended more to alienate sympathy from her, than the use of unbridled power in the Church schools by a few extreme men. Henceforth this danger to a Church which is as dearly loved by, and as much the possession of, the laity as the clergyman will be removed.
Previous page
