RELIGIOUS TEACHING UNDER SCHOOL BOARDS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—Yen will, perhaps, permit me to make a brief reply to the two salient points in Lord Norton's letter, with the catholic and devout spirit of which I deeply sympathise. Why cannot " a common grounding of elemental truth," Lord Norton asks, be given in Board schools P (1.) Because Board-schools belong to the community at large, and very many Christians (notably the powerful party now striving to enforce the teaching of definite dogmas in the London schools) do not regard such " grounding" as sufficient, apart from the introduction of controverted theological opinions. (2.) Because the children will be more religiously influenced if the instruc- tion be given apart from the ordinary curriculum, by religious men with a special love for the work. (3.) Because a Board- teacher must either omit or include controverted dogmas; if he omits them, he wrongs those who deem them essential, and will in many cases be false to his own convictions ; if he includes them, he wrongs those who do not believe them, and in many cases himself also ; while in either alternative, if he has to teach religion, a test of his fitness must be applied, and with the application of such a test his spiritual independence must vanish.
Lord Norton's anxiety that all children should receive religions instruction is mine; but he fears that if it be not given by Board-teachers not " a third of our town children would "ever learn the name of Christ." On the contrary, I submit (1), that greater attention would be paid to Sunday- schools and church work generally among the young, when Sunday.sehools and churches have the full responsibility thrown upon them ; (2), that time and money now lavished by the clergy and their friends upon schools in which the largest part of the work must be secular, would be liberated for religious uses ; (3), that Sunday-school teachers, mis- sionaries, and others, by visiting the homes of those who dwell in heathenism, could win them to religion far more effectively than can the secular staff of a day-school, who have no time for such work. It is a remarkable fact that the adoption of the system I advocate in Birmingham has been accompanied by a vigorous extension of Sunday-school activities, while juvenile- crime has steadily diminished.—I am, Sir, &c.,
HENRY W. CROSSKEY.
117 Gough Road, Birmingham, June 7th.
[This discussion must now end.—En. Spectator.1
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