RISE OF THE SECULAR PRINCIPLE OF EDUCATION. THE Church may
be considered the general mother, from " whose mighty wings outspread" have emerged the principal civil insti- tutions of the kingdom. Apart from temporal power and posses- sions, she doubtless had, from being the chief depository of learning, superior claims to the direction of the mind and faith of the com- munity. Hence, education was wholly under spiritual control,— first, through the instrumentality of the cathedral and conventual schools ; next, of the universities and grammar-schools ; and at all times, from the exclusive power vested in the ordinary to license those eligible to teach or set up schools. In 1447, four incumbents of London, impressed with the low state of education in the City, petitioned for leave to erect schools in their parishes : the prayer was granted by Henry the Sixth, on condition that the design were carried out under the advice of the ordinary, and conform- ably to rules prescribed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. This first attempt at popular education having succeeded, the example was followed, and other schools were petitioned' for and founded, in St. Paul's Churchyard, St. Martin's-le-Grand, at Bow Church, and St. Dunstan's.
From her educational supremacy the Church declined, probably, less owing to degeneracy than the immobility of her usages and authorities. If the human mind be free to act, it is naturally pro- gressive from the mere force of a cumulative experience ; con- sequently it went onward, opening for itself not only new branches of knowledge, but new and better modes of acquiring and com- municating them; and with this movement the ecclesiastical order did not keep pace ; remaining stationary in the old curriculum of grammar, logic, theology, and Aristotle's ethics. To this altered relation may be traced the first rise of the secular principle of in- struction ; new social exigencies had sprung up, for which the clergy failed to supply the needful auxiliaries and direction, not in science and morals only, but in all the chief affairs of life, in poli- tical government, magistracy, laws, and judicial administration.
A second cause, tending to give impulse to the secular principle, consisted of the fact that the State itself gradually became less spiritual in character. Outwardly, indeed, there was no change, but the substance had exhaled. Titularly, the Sovereign continued the Defender of the Faith, the coronation-oath retained its reli- gious obligation, and the Protestant settlement was ostensibly held an important guarantee : what, however, has become of the first, it is not easy to ascertain ; but as respects the second, it has been interpreted to be open to future construction as Parliament may ordain ; and the settlement act, it is likely, was intended quite as much as a dynastic or party as a religious security. That great changes have supervened—that realities have gone, leaving only shadows—everything around attests; in the national Univer- sities it is generally understood to be so, neither does the Legisla- ture form an exception. What is there now validly of religious import in the statute-book ? In common or statute law, what has become of the mass of disqualifying penal enactments on holding offices, or even those against heresy, apostasy, denying the Trin- ity, reviling Church ordinances, or non-attendance at church ? All gone ; died out, or been directly repealed ; so that few or any dogmas remain, short of open blasphemy, which a man may not merely privately entertain, but openly and with impunity pro- mulgate.
This spirit of entire tolerance of religious sentiment was not limited to government and legislation, but had permeated society. In the business of private life, who thought of creeds or religious tests of fitness, usefulness, or worth ? Who for any office of trust or employment esteemed it first necessary to ascertain a can- didate's theological opinions ? Even in the now vexed question of education, this charity had become uppermost. Children whose parents were of every denomination met at the same school, con- ned the same lessons, used the same books, and what is more, the same master, of whose faith nobody deemed it requisite to inquire : if competent, and morally unexceptionable, these sufficed ; and that too in days of the purest voluntaryism, when all were free to choose, and all was paid for—teacher, school-building, books, pens, everything.
All
this social fusion seems disturbed, or sought to be, and that in face of example, of protracted and general tendencies. The secular principle, we have seen, is not a new approach ; it has been long gaining on the spiritual in every direction ; and why stop at child-teaching ? Impracticability in the Church may have ex- cuses ; it had inheritable and exclusive claims ; education—Uni- versal education—was its duty, though neglected. But how palliate the fastidiousness or obstructiveness of Dissent ? Is it seemly in those to seek to oppress who have only newly won their own freedom ? Ought disqualifying tests to be revived by those whose escape from them is only of yesterday? Is it not Dissenters repenting the error of their predecessors in the Civil Wars, when Presbyterians and Independents, in alternate triumph, each reta- liated on its rival all the injustice it had suffered in humiliation? or of the more revolting conflicts of the anarchists of France, who, on attaining ascendancy, sought revenge and security by guil- lotining their opponents ?
But the ease may not be so bad as prima facie it seems. If re- ligion only enters, it merits respect ; but if love of influence thwarts, it ought to be counteracted. The interests of followers are not always identified with those of leaders. In ecclesiastical differences, as in political feuds, ambition creeps in. Demagogues, it is known, dislike nothing so much as a reconciliation of parties, by which their individuality may be lost or suffer' they always, if free to ask, take care to demand what cannot be conceded or compromised. Something of the like spirit may influence the magnates of churches and denominations; who, like Julius Caesar or a German despot, may prefer the absolute lordship of a village or princedom to equal partnership in an empire. But such absolutism is easily defeated ; it only requires liberal and substantial offers that cannot be mistaken or undervalued, just as the new Colleges of Ireland won over the Catholic gentry in spite of the Pope and the Synod of Thurles. In England the question of education seems ripe for decision. A. want is felt, is generally acknowledged ; but the community is not agreed on the best mode of meeting it. It is in an exigency of this kind that legislation, acting authoritatively under the initia- tive of Government—if we only had one—would be most bene- ficial and acceptable, by reconciling differences, compromising real or imaginary conflicting interests, and overcoming mere cavilling or sinister opposition. The secular principle would seem to offer the desirable neutral ground for all parties ; and, so far from being new, it would only be a revival of a former practice, and con- formable with that silent revolution which had taken place in laws, institutions, and public opinion.
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