RELIGION AND THE SCHOOLS
SIR,-1 appreciate the reference in your article with the above heading to " The Three Foundation Principles " which I describe as underlying the aim of those who desire England to be a Christian country. The training in worship which is given in a daily opening act of worship in all schools has great value. But I should not like it to be thought that training in worship has little to do with Church membership. One of the things for which Church Schools in particular stand is, in the words of the National Society's Memorandum, " to secure that religious instruc- tion in schools should equip the children for their membership of the Christian Church as a worshipping community." I do not think that the effect of the proposals put forward by the National Society in relation to the importance of the religious factor in education have yet fully penetrated the public mind. In times of grave difficulty Church Schools have stoutly maintained that a Christian foundation is the essential and only basis of a real education. And, as the Memorandum points out, " this foundation is best and most surely embodied in schools which are definitely incorporated into the living fellowship of a worshipping
Christian community." #
The present proposals of the National Society seem to me to be unsatisfactory because of their weakness on certain essential points, and because of the great widening of State control over the character of religious instruction which they involve. A far better solution of the problem would in my judgement be found in the principles of the Scottish Settlement of 1918 which, while transferring non-provided schools to the Authority, both makes adequate arrangements with regard to the appointment of teachers by the Authority, in effective consultation with the Church concerned, and entirely safeguards the religious status
and character of the school.—Yours faithfully, GEORGE CIC.ESTR : The Palace, Chichester.
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