LATEST PHASES OF THE SCHOOL QUESTION.
IN a letter to the Rev. John Hallam, secretary of the Civil Rights Joint Committee of the Congregational- ists and Baptists of Yorkshire, Sir William Harcourt flings himself and his chub into the front of the fight for the maintenance of injustice to voluntary schools. The Daily News, after its manner, rejoices over what it regards as the breaking of an episcopal crown—that of Dr. Temple—by this swashbuckling opponent of " the threatened attack on the educational system of the country ; " and, not less characteristically, points with sympathetic glee to Sir W. Harcourt's allusion—of which we need only say that the form and the argument were worthy of the taste—to the Bishop's emoluments as a reason why he should be debarred from contending that the School Boards spend too much on teachers' salaries. The fact is, of course, that with men bearing the characters of Bishop Temple and Archdeacon Wilson among their most earnest and active leaders, the friends of the present movement on behalf of voluntary schools cannot be with the faintest plausibility stigmatised by the enemies of those schools as obscurantists. It is natural, therefore, that those whose business it is to write down that movement should be keen to welcome any oppor- tunity of taking away the character of liberality and enlightenment which the Bishop of London and the Arch- deacon of Manchester unquestionably bear. There have been one or two somewhat unmannerly attacks upon Arch- deacon Wilson by persons who could not abide his firm and judicious, though considerate, treatment of the Bishop of Hereford. But it has been reserved for Sir W. Harcourt to set an example to the rank-and-file of the Radical party of the manner in which a life-long friend of educa- tion of all grades should be treated if he ventures to regard the element of religion in primary instruction as of more value than the latest or the penultimate development of the demands of the Education Department in regard to the so-called rudiments of secular knowledge. Thus Bishop Temple's attitude, according to the leader of the Liberal party in the House of Commons, is marked by a " frank cynicism " which is " truly deplorable." He wishes, as Sir W. Harcourt—for forensic purposes—reads his speech at the Foreign Office, not to raise the voluntary schools, of whose inevitable failure under present con- ditions to compete successfully with the Board-schools he complains, to the level of the latter, but rather to level the latter down to the standard observed in neighbouring voluntary schools. The pretext found for this grave and most perverse misrepresentation lies in the Bishop of London's citation of the case of a voluntary school which, though under an excellent head-master, could not maintain its position because of its inability to pay such salaries to assistant teachers as those paid at Board-schools in the same district, together with his contention that some superior body such as the County Council ought to have the power of checking excessive expenditure on the part of School Boards. But the reasoning of this ex-Minister in search of a cry, is too obviously perverse and one-sided. It leaves out of account the fact that the Bishop main- tained that a study of the reports of her Majesty's in- spectors, with regard to different Board-schools, would show that the mere spending of money on teachers' salaries was by no means a certain method of securing the best educational results. On the other hand, it violently strains his frank acknowledgment that in the school, from the master of which he read a letter, the voluntary element consists in the provision of the school, and not in con- tinued subscriptions, and on the strength of this rests the insinuation that, in the scheme of the Anglican deputation to the Prime Minister, " the Board-schools are to be dragged down and their educational standard degraded to suit the purposes of the patrons of voluntary schools who do not choose to subscribe." It is not the Bishop of London's reputation for a genuine love of education that will suffer from these distortions of the effect of his speech. It is not the case of the voluntary schools for further aid from public moneys that will suffer from a piece of special pleading in which it is ignored that the Primate, who, as chief spokesman of the deputation, had preceded Dr. Temple, expressed readiness to consent that in any new arrangement for the assistance of voluntary schools security should be taken against any falling-off in the Anglican subscriptions,— subscriptions which were larger last year than ever before, amounting to above £620,000, exclusive of other contributions, which brought up the sum expended in 1894 by Churchmen on Church- schools to rather over than under a million of money. From the point of view of rational and equitable dis- cussion, the deliberate neglect of the facts just mentioned as to the continuing sacrifices of Anglicans for the support of their schools, by leading personages, ministerial and lay, on the other side, is nothing short of a public scandal. And there is little, if any, more excuse for the imputation of which Sir William Harcourt has made himself the leading exponent, that the friends of voluntary schools desire a "levelling down" of the educational standard. They complain, and complain with reason, of any gratuitous disturbance to their disadvan- tage of the conditions of the arrangement under which they engaged, in accordance with the 1870 settlement, to divide the work of primary education with the Board- school system. They feel that such gratuitous disturb- ance takes place whenever a Board, having the local public purse at its command, increases the relative prestige of its schools by the introduction of some feature which, while attractive in itself, does not enhance the permanent educational value of the training given in them. On the other hand, they are not in any sense opposed to educa- tional progress, and would, on the contrary, gladly co- operate in promoting it, if only it were clearly understood that fresh expenditure entailed by fresh demands of the Education Department would without doubt be met, in the case of voluntary not less than in that of Board schools, out of public resources. But the State has no right to expect that, educating as they do nearly two-and- a-half millions of children, the supporters of voluntary schools will be prepared to accept both all the heavy addi- tion to their burdens which has been entailed and that which may be entailed in future by the development of views as to educational requirements quite different from those which reigned at the Education Office in 1870, or even at a much more recent date. They say that they desire to discharge worthily in every respect the trust which the State has committed to them ; but that they can only do so if the State acknowledges that it has altered, and is from time to time altering, the conditions of that trust on their side, and that it ought to make a material recognition of those alterations on its own side. We are convinced that the reasonableness and fairness of the position which we have indicated will commend it to the mass of the English people.
Logically, and also in strict equity, as we have before now acknowledged, the claim of the Roman Catholics for the payment out of public moneys of the whole cost of secular instruction in denominational schools, is hardly open to any effective impeachment. In this connection it is forcibly contended by the Duke of Argyll in Tuesday's Times that, unless indeed the State is prepared to adopt a role of militant paganism, wholly at variance with English feeling, the only right and reasonable policy for it to pursue, under present conditions, towards the Churches in regard to education is that of benevolent neutrality and thankful acceptance of their services in combining religious with secular instruction, and payment to them for the latter "at such rates as may be fairly proportionate to the cost." But strong as is the case in theory for such a policy, we cannot imagine, or even hope, that it will prevail. It would be too much a policy of combat—too serious a reversal of principles supposed to be established—to be carried, if it could be carried, without entailing long-con-. tinned dissatisfaction and resentment. It would also, while relieving, especially among the Roman Catholics, many poor subscribers who can ill afford to help their schools, free many others who can bear the burdens resting on them without any hardship, and whose acceptance of them is a substantial evidence of that sincerity of religious zeal which constitutes a solid claim to the trust of control over school management. All, therefore, that we feel able to press on public opinion, in regard to the question of further aid to voluntary schools, is the essential justice of the main claim for- mulated on their behalf by the Anglican deputation,— namely, the substantial relief of their supporters in respect of the enhanced burdens which have accumulated upon them, and provision for the discharge by the State of any further obligations which, in accordance with the best educational thought and experience of the country, may in future be laid upon elementary schools. We do not know how far it may be idle to appeal to Radicals to look at the facts and the merits of the case apart from the misleading gibes of Sir William Harcourt. Not a few Nonconformists, we should hope, may recog- nise the justice of Archdeacon Wilson's contention, con- veyed in the form of a friendly catechism in Monday's Times, as to the practical impossibility of assuring the continuance of the religious character of English educa- tion without maintaining the existing connection between schools and training colleges and religious bodies. If that be acknowledged—and we cannot see how it can be seriously disputed—then we are satisfied that the necessity of giving reasonable aid to the voluntary schools will be seen to be no mere dream of fanatics, from whom Mr. Lyulph Stanley trusts to the great moderate middle class to deliver him, but the clearly established result of educa- tional progress working among an essentially religious people. In this connection it is interesting to notice that the Westminster Gazette has welcomed an article in the Birmingham Post as showing that Mr. Chamberlain is only favourable to such additional help to voluntary schools as would " prevent them from being destroyed or seriously impaired; " and the former paper seems very fairly happy at the thought of ending the present con- troversy on those terms, so long as nothing is done to " level down," or, in the words of the Birmingham Post, to " hinder the natural development of the representative system wherever new schools are required." This looks more like an approach to a working settlement than anything we have yet seen. If new State grants are given on such principles as would truly and permanently " prevent the voluntary schools from being destroyed or seriously impaired," we should probably hear no more of the request for a revision of School Board procedure by a higher authority which has been so unfairly construed as a demand for levelling down. As to the question of new schools in growing dis- tricts, we are certainly of opinion that it would be unfair and undesirable to prevent Churchmen or Roman Catholics from making provision for considerable numbers of children of their respective communions, so long ;.s Board-schools are also freely established where the needs of the population call for them. But if an equitable and practical arrangement can be come to with regard to existing schools, it may reasonably be hoped that no serious quarrel would be maintained on other points.
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