THE RELIGIOUS APPEAL TO THE SCHOOL CHILDREN'S PARENTS.
WE do not understand why the London School Board controversy goes on so blithely without any refer- ence whatever to that which seems to us the main factor in the whole question,—the discretion of the parents. What is quite certain is that the parents were intended to have a good. deal of discretion in the matter of determining the religious teaching. As a matter of fact, different School Boards have actually used that discretion in very different ways. Yet the controversy rages now as if it had never been intended to leave it to the electors of the School Boards to determine how they would have that discretion exercised. No doubt the Act of 1870 did decide that the religious teaching established by the School Boards should never be denominational, should never use the formularies of any particular Church ; but what exactly the words denominational and undenominational were to mean, was not defined, except so far as to exclude the special formulas of special Churches. It was left to the School Boards to exclude religious teaching altogether if they should think fit, or to exclude everything but the reading of the Bible, or to allow the religious teachers of the various Churches to take the children belonging to those Churches for separate religious instruction at separate times. What is called the Compromise adopted on the London School Board was not adopted, and could not have been adopted, as overruling a, different exercise of the discretion by the elected Board at some future time, if that should ever seem to be advisable. More- over, it is not denied, and cannot be denied, that the meaning of that Compromise has been differently under- stood by the managers of the different London schools ; and that what has been taken as the natural sense of the Compromise in one school, has not always been taken as its natural sense in another school. Yet now we hear nothing of the deliberate intention of those who passed the Act of 1870 to leave a good deal of discretion to the School Board, and even to the managers of the separate schools, as regards the mode in which the rules as to religious teaching should be understood and practically applied. We maintain that the electors were intended to exercise and, if they pleased, to vary their discretion, sub- ject always to the principle that parents who did not like the way in which the discretion was used, were to have the privilege of withdrawing their children from the religious lesson, and either instructing them themselves, or sending them for instruction to teachers of their own choosing. What is perfectly clear is that if it is left to the teacher to explain the Bible in his or her own way, it is certain that what one teacher regards as strictly unde- nominational, another will regard as denominational, and that it will be quite impossible to secure religious ex- planations which shall have no prejudicing effect on the minds of the children. The remedy for that in the last resort is the conscience clause, and can never be anything but the conscience clause.
Dr. Martineau, in his interesting letter to Wednesday's Times, recognises this clearly, and yet his letter illustrates how very differently different people understand what is reasonable in these matters. He says Christ's own teaching as to himself is "absolutely without any trace of the doc- trines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Atonement by the blood of Christ, while assuming the forgiveness of sins on simple repentance." Well, that means, what Dr. Martineau does not say, that be rejects as spurious the Gospel of St. John, which be could certainly not refer to when using lan- guage of this kind, for no one who accepted that Gospel as genuine could possibly say that such language as "no man bath ascended up to Heaven but he that came down from Heaven, even the Son of Man which is in Heaven," taken in connection with "He that bath seen me bath seen the Father," shows no trace of the doctrine of the Incarnation; or that the sixteenth chapter of the same Gospel, con- cerning the Holy Spirit, shows no trace of the doctrine of the Trinity. But surely Dr. Martineau, with his long experience of the religious world, does not expect all the various Churches to share his own conviction that the Gospel of St. John is a product of the second century P Hence it seems to us hopeless to suppose that, however reasonable it may be to exclude the deeper Christian theology from the rudimentary classes, as he proposes, and to leave it to the more advanced lessons given to the elder children, it can possibly be admitted that this should be done on the specific ground of Dr. Martineau's assumption that our Lord's own words concerning him- self never go beyond the limits which he assigns to them. Indeed, there are plenty of passages even in the first three Gospels which the critic must get rid of as unauthentic, and which Dr. Martineau does himself get rid of as unauthentic, before he can truly say that there is "no trace" of these doctrines in Christ's own teaching. We do not at all object to Dr. Martineau's solution that young children may well be left to the simpler and, rela- tively speaking, non-theological, lessons of the New Testa- ment, and that the more recondite lessons should be reserved for a later stage of the child's development, but we do not accept this on the very disputable ground which Dr. Martineau assigns. Nothing illustrates the difficulty of the questions at issue more effectually than Dr. Ma rtrneau's assumption of a position as almost self- evident which, we suppose, even Archdeacon Farrar would earnestly repudiate.
But what we come back to is the great principle that the electors of the School Board,—of whom, of course, the parents were supposed to constitute a large majority,— were given and were meant to be given a very real discretion as to the character of the undenominational doctrine to be included in the religious lesson, the conscience clause being kept in reserve to prevent any abuse of that discretion. That being so, we do not see why it should be regarded as a, sort of treachery to appeal to the parents to say how they wish that discretion to be exercised. The Church party say that the Compromise has not been always fairly applied ; that, so far as explanations might be asked and needed as to the person of Christ, the personality of the Holy Spirit, the meaning of Redemption, the teachers were never intended to be silent on these subjects ; but that the orthodox theology was assumed as common to the Church and the vast majority of the Dissenters, the Unitarians and Theists being protected by the conscience clause. Nor do we believe that, twenty years ago, that assumption would have been often questioned. But, as now it is questioned, why not let the electors decide the issue, as it was intended they should, by returning a majority either for Mr. Diggle's view of the issue, or for Dr. Clifford's view of it P There seems to be no manner of doubt that some such discretion was intended to be given to the electors of School Boards, and in whatever way it is used, we do not see why the decision should be regarded as a serious grievance. If it is decided in favour of the Church party's view, it will still be quite open to School Boards practically to adopt Dr. Martineau's compromise, and exclude Trinitarian theology from the rudimentary lessons, while inculcating it frankly in the more advanced lessons, though not for Dr. Martineau's reason. No judicious teacher would select the more theological chap- ters of St. John's Gospel or of St. Paul's epistles for the edification of young children ; but it does not follow that such portions of the New Testament would not be almost indispensable in showing how Christ conceived his own and the divine nature, and how the Apostles understood that he had conceived it. If, on the other hand, the parents decide that no theology beyond that implied in Theism, shall be inculcated in Board-schools at all, they have the perfect right so to do, though of course the effect will be to shift a good many children from the Board- schools to the voluntary schools, where such teaching is allowed. What we cannot understand is the bitterness with which the appeal to the parents is discussed. In all the great endowed schools a memorial from a large maprity of the parents on the subject of their children's religious teaching would be accepted with the utmost respect and deference, and we do not see why the same respect and deference should not be paid to the parents of the shildren in elemen- tary schools. After all, it is they, and they only, who can withdraw their children from the religious lesson if they disapprove it, and therefore it is only reasonable that they should determine for themselves what, within the limits prescribed by the Education Act, the general character of the• undenominational religion there given should be. No Compromise could be agreed upon, which would not leave the parents of resolute Agnostics discontented with the teaching of Christian lessons. And it appears to us to be a practical question for the decision of the parents themselves whether rather more or rather fewer children should be left to the protection of the conscience clause, and whether the parents of rather more or rather fewer children should be submitted to the theological teaching given in the Board-schools. There seems to us to be no ground and no justification for the violent recriminations to which the appeal of the Church party to the electors of the London School Board on the general character of the religious teaching, has given rise.
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