• LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE EDUCATION BILL.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR.")
Sin,—A correspondent in last week's Spectator tells Church people that the Bill relieves them of the coat of repairing their schools. More than one tell them that they are to
receive rent.
The first is a very doubtful boon. At present, though half the schools have received nothing from the Government towards their building, and the rest have received on an average about one-twentieth of their cost, Sir George Kekewich and others tell us that all the schools have been virtually paid for by the State. What will they say when the gable-end has been pointed at the cost of the rates or a new classroom added? The second supposed boon is not mentioned in the Bill at all, and is at present contrary to a certain Minute of Council, which stipulates that no payment of rent can be sanctioned in the case of a transferred school.
But what many of us feel is that the Bill leaves us so much in the clouds, and very threatening clouds they are. As thus:— (1) There may be in a school a very good religious syllabus, or— there may not. (2) Children may attend for religious instruc- tion, or—they may not. (3) Teachers may offer to teach it, or— they may not. (4) The local education authority may offer the trustees of Voluntary schools reasonable terms, or—they may not. (5) They may allow special religious instruction on two mornings, or—they may not. They cannot allow teachers to teach it. That at least is certain. (6) They may grant "extended facilities," or —they may not. (7) What they have decided may not be upset after the next municipal election, or—it may. (8) The three Commissioners may draw up a reasonable scheme, or—they may not. We do not know who they are to be, or on what lines they are to proceed. We know only that there is no appeal. Why so desperate a plunge into so gross a darkness ? And what are we to think of those who would persuade us that the prospect is alluring, and that we should count ourselves happy in it?
Holy Trinity Vicarage, South Shields.
[We agree with our correspondent in thinking that the Bill should be a great deal more definite, and for that reason we have advocated amendments intended to give that full
security to the Church which only definiteness can give.— ED. Spectator.]
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