TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE CHANGE OF FRONT ON THE EDUCATION BILL.
THE Government Education Bill is what the sailors call "in stays,"—i.e., in the crisis of changing from one tack to another while beating up against a head wind, the doubt for the moment being whether the ship will swing round with the change of tactics or "refuse stays." The change is, of course, the more critical because if at this late moment of the Session it fails, delay is inevitable ; and there are so many questions of temper complicating the questions of policy, that not even the shrewdest politician will hazard a confident opinion before Monday next. Nevertheless, the change proposed is, as it seems to us, a very great change for the better. We showed last week that, so far as the religious difficulty in the new rate-provided schools is concerned, no other solution than that now adopted by the Government,—Mr. Cowper Temple's proposal to banish catechisms, formularies, and sectarian creeds altogether from the rate-founded schools,— is even possible, unless the people are prepared to accept secular education, which, as we well know, they are not. The other great change proposed, of increasing by a sum not larger than fifty per cent. the central grant in aid to all kinds of schools, whether public rate-founded schools or voluntary schools, so bringing the total grant from one-third up to about one-half of the whole annual cost of the school, provided always that the total sum so granted falls con- siderably below the total cost of a purely secular school, and leaving the rest to be provided by the rate in the case of the school-board schools and by private effort in the case of the voluntary schools, has a great deal to re- commend it, in the dangers it will avoid of constant local squabbles between the school boards and the managers of the voluntary schools. In a word, we feel no doubt that, as Mr. Forster emphatically said, the measure now proposed is a great deal better and a great deal more truly liberal than any yet suggested. But then the difficulties are hardly difficulties caused by serious considerations of policy. They are diffi- culties caused by the marvellous susceptibilities of temper dis- played by all the parties to this great controversy. One would suppose that if there ever were a question on which there would be a grave effort at public-spirited self-forgetfulness and self-sacrifice, at relinquishing private crotchets for the sake of a great common end, this question of education would be the one. As far as we can see, however, it seems to be very much the reverse, at least on the part of the most active of all the bodies attempting to influence public opinion, the Birmingham League. The simple truth concerning them is that they do not know their own mind, and they cannot repress the intensity of the vexation which the consciousness of not knowing their own mind causes them. The leaders, no doubt, in their hearts wish for secular education, but they are perfectly well aware that they cannot formulate this as their demand without losing all public support. They ask, therefore, for undenominational and unsectarian education, and when asked what that means they get into a pet. Mr. Vernon Harcourt, in the rather swaggering little speech of Thursday night, and Mr. Dixon, in his far more impres- sive but far more excited expression of bitter feeling, in- timated that unsectarian instruction in the Bible was the simplest thing in the world. But in point of fact, as they well know, there are hardly ten lessons out of the New Testament which could be taken without the children's asking and the teacher being compelled to answer questions touching the very heart of sectarian differences. A child asks what the meaning of "the Word became flesh" is, and the teacher must either give an answer that will disgust all the genuinely Unitarian parents, or all the Trinitarian parents, or possibly even both. The child asks what "justification by faith and not by works" means, and the teacher must give an answer which will disgust either all the Theistic, Unitarian, High Church, and Roman Catholic parents, or all the Evangelical parents, or both. In a word, whatever Mr. Harcourt may boast, it is perfectly obvious that unsectarian instruction in the Bible must either mean instruction only in the Sermon on the Mount and the devotional Psalms, or instruction in the schoolmaster's own understanding of Revelation,—given, how- ever, under the restraint that he is not allowed to use any directly sectarian formulw, and, therefore, has a very intelligible warning that he is to press peculiar and disputed conceptions as little as possible on his pupils. Mr. Dixon says that this means forbidding the sectarianism of a few score of Churches,. but legalizing instead the sectarianism of many thousands of individuals. We should like to know what system which permits religious instruction by the schoolmaster at all does not legalize the sectarianism of many thousands of indi- viduals. His "undenominational and unsectarian" education would do so every bit as much as any other plan. If the master is not to be altogether prohibited from reading and explaining nine-tenths of the Bible, the peculiarities of his own views must come out as much in teaching a school nominally undenominational, as in teaching a school in which the only condition should be that no sectarian formula should be used. Mr. Dixon and his friends are perfectly aware of this, and it is, we take it, the peculiar trial of their position,— and that which wrings from them such nervous and fret- ful expressions of feeling,—that there is no sort of escape from it. If they choose to agitate for secular education. their position will be logical, but they will lose all sub- stantial support. If they hold to their present formula, they introduce, and necessarily introduce, all the difficulties they want to avoid. The thing has been tried. The British and Foreign Schools profess to be unsectarian and undenomi- national. They are so, so far that the evangelical denomina- tions are quite unlikely to complain ; bit no genuine Uni- tarian, no genuine Broad-Churchman, no genuine High- Churchman, no Roman Catholic would tolerate the religious. teaching given in them for a moment. Nothing can be more pitiful than the intellectual position of the un- denominational party at the present moment. Only read the report of the meeting held on Monday at St. James's Hall, under Mr. M'Arthur's presidency. The resolutions passed at that meeting flatly contradicted each other, and the speakers flatly contradicted each other, and sometimes the same speaker flatly contradicted himself. The first resolution,. for instance, which was carried, expressed the conviction of the meeting that "so long as any classes may be required to. pay rates for the teaching of religious tenets from which they dissent, the Bill cannot have the approval of Noncon- formists." The third resolution, which was also carried, ex- pressed the conviction of the same meeting that "the diffi- culties of the case may be met by prohibiting the use of any religious catechisms, or formularies, or the teaching of any- thing in opposition to or in support of the tenets of any sect,—this resolution not to apply to the use of the Holy Scriptures." Well, considering that every sect bases its dis- tinctive views on its mode of interpreting the Holy Scriptures, that is pretty well for contradiction ; but the speaker who moved this resolution in form, opposed it vehemently in fact, urging that the teaching of the schools dur- ing proper school hours should be exclusively secular,—a. remark which appears to have called up Mr. Spurgeon, who asserted that education must be "religious or nothing," and that, much as he differed from the Church of England, "ha was not prepared to make that fight the one business of his life, his whole aim and object." "Education must be religious in the very nature of things. He would not send his child to a school where the Bible was not read. He should look upon the exclusion of the Bible from the day-schools as a religion, the worst kind of religion. He believed that in this he represented the great bulk of the Nonconformists." No wonder that the Birmingham Leaguers are distracted in heart. They dare not ask what they really wish. What they propose is on the face of it absurd. They are torn asunder by opposite forces. To add to these complications, we have Mr. Disraeli as eager as ever to gain over the support of the left wing of the Liberal party. His speech on Thursday night was a regular volley fired into his own friends. Its most telling point, the description of the schoolmasters as a new "sacerdotal caste," was in effect a fierce attack on his own friends ; and had this defect in its context as a criticism on the new proposals of the Government, that it applied even more forcibly to the old proposal which he had supported, than to the new pro- posal which he was trying to condemn. Lord Sandon, Mr. Gathorne Hardy, and Sir John Palington evidently felt. this, and did all in their power to cancel the effect of Mr. Disraeli's speech. Mr. Fawcett chuckled visibly throughout the whole of it. Mr. Vernon Harcourt metaphorically flung his forensic arms round the neck of the Tory leader whom society has always rumoured that he went into Parliament ex- pressly to annihilate. Mr. Dixon, alone of that party, with something of the dignity of real political feeling tried to be fair to the Government, though he could hardly repress the loath- ing with which he viewed the proposal to give any increased aid to denominational schools even though the aid was to be shared by the rate-built schools. It was a curious scene of mis- chievous finesse on one side, and surging prejudices on the other.
That a day or two's consideration may be sufficient to lead the country to embrace what we deem the excellent scheme of the Government we earnestly hope ; but we cannot pretend as yet to foresee the result with any con- fidence. We do not pretend to fear much from ,Mr. Disraeli's machinations. His bitterness will have the effect it always has on the genuinely loyal Liberals,—such Liberals as Mr. Dixon,—of making them more anxious than before to support the Government, if only they can see their way to do so. The only serious danger is this, the denominational schools are not to be put under new disadvantages, and that is what the most eager of the malcontents demand. Mr. Gladstone answers that the Government could not in fairness adopt any plan which would exclude from all the advantages of the Bill those religious sects with tenets so peculiar and distinctive as to make their use of the common religious classes of the rate-founded schools entirely impossible. He urged with unanswerable force that the population most deplorably in need of elementary education is the Irish Roman Catholic population of many of our great towns. Of course the Catholic priest will never sanction sending Catholic children to a rate-founded school in which the Bible is taught without any distinctive formulary. Of course, therefore, it would be gross injustice to refuse to Roman Catholic schools, and the existing schools of other religious sects which stand in the same position, all the advantages of the new measure. There not only is not, but cannot be, an answer to this criticism, unless we are prepared to reverse all the policy of the last half-century, by taxing parents of all religions for schools of which only parents of some religions can avail themselves. But the very force of the position is the ground of danger. The League have taken up the cry against denominationalism with a sort of fanatic passion. The disestablishment of the Irish Church has resulted in a bitter reaction against any policy which seems to be just to Roman Catholics. Secular tempers and religious prejudices are bubbling up everywhere like so many Bethesdas with devil angels to stir them, and a quite other than healing effect en those who step down into the troubled waters. It is impossible to predict how far the wisdom of the Government concession will be appreciated. The precaution against any visibly sectarian triumph in the election of the School Boards, and the ample security given to the parents that they may have either strictly denominational education combined with good secular teaching, or comprehensive religious education combined with good secular teaching, or lastly, good secular teaching without any religious education at all, seem to us -securities for the amplest liberty, but it is not in reality liberty for which some of our agitators are crying out. They wish to impose severe restraints on the liberty of the parent, —actively to discourage denominational schools,—in fact, to -charge the parent who prefers a religious school for his -children, a heavy differential duty for his preference. Mr. Spurgeon's determination never to send his child to what he calls "a religious school of the worst class,"—a school whence the Bible is excluded,—is met by many with the sneer that he must pay for his wish, so fierce is the fanaticism that desires to restrain the liberty of parents to have their own reli- gious belief taught to their children. If the wish for liberty, —true liberty,—is indeed in the ascendant, the Government compromise will be gratefully and joyfully accepted. But we are hardly sanguine that it is.
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