THE EDUCATION BILL AND TRAINING COLLEGES.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATORM
Sin,—In my letter a week ago I offered some reasons for maintaining the present character of the denominational Training Colleges as Christian Colleges for the teachers of the elementary schools of the nation; and I intimated that, if permitted, I should wish, in another letter, to refer more particularly to the freedom which should continue to be allowed to the trained teachers to do all their work as the responsible Christian instructors of their pupils. Since that letter was written the strong speech of Mr. Balfour at Cambridge has enforced the same principle, while the Bishop of Hereford, staunch and earnest supporter as he has been of the political party now in power, has greatly gratified some of his personal friends, if I may presume to say so, and powerfully enforced the claims and rights of the nation's trained teachers, as I ventured to state them in my former letter, by his strong letter in the Times. Dr. Percival, as an educationist, is not merely a Bishop. He has been himself a distinguished public-school teacher, first at Clifton and afterwards at Rugby, and was a close personal friend of Archbishop Temple. On the point in question his authority cannot but be great, especially when it is exerted in opposition to the political party which he has steadfastly
supported.
I had intended to say something as to the clause referring to "special facilities," but I judge that that clause may be left to fall by its own specific gravity. But there is one other point in relation to the Bill which calls for special notice, and that is what has been hardly too severely, though not quite accurately, described as its confiscatory character. What is proposed is to alienate from the churches of England school property to the value of tens of thousands of pounds. Something has been said in the House of Commons as to compensation for this alienation in the form of liberal rent. One would like to know what this means, on what principle such rent has been calculated, and how far even Parliament can claim the power to alienate property acquired and for many years maintained by Christian churches for religious purposes, in the way of popular education, and also, in many cases, of Christian worship, in order to establish a system of Colleges and schools for secular instruction. This question appears to be one of transcendent importance, and one which could hardly be settled and determined, even by Parliament, merely by statute. It has been stated in this discussion that a rental of half-a-million is to be paid as compensation to the Church of England for the alienation of her rights in her National schools and Church Training Colleges, and a rental of 420,000 to the Wesleyan Methodists as compensation for the alienation of their Training Colleges and day-schools. No doubt if the Training Colleges and elementary day-schools of the religious denominations are to be taken posses- sion of by the State, and alienated from the churches which built and established them, and the charge of confiscation by the State is to be in any manner met by a denial, some sort of compensa- tion must be attempted ; but it is hard to see how any real com- pensation can be made. It is scarcely possible to imagine a more difficult problem to be equitably adjusted, or one which approaches more closely to the region of Parliamentary interference with the Constitutional and religious rights and equities of England and Englishmen. Abuses and iniquities cannot be alleged against those institu- tions such as were charged against the monastic institutions in the time of Henry VIII. All has been done lawfully under recent Parliamentary statutes, and the great benefits conferred on the nation are undeniable, although some allege that there have been here and there undesirable drawbacks. These schools have, in fact, saved the country from deep discredit and from perils of social evil and disorganisation. How is it possible to justify a Parliamentary mandate to violate the covenants and 1 to break up the sacred and patriotic work by which such results have been attained ? A mandate, forsooth ! founded on electioneering contests and the excesses of violent and largely misguided party spirit.
What is threatened, indeed, cannot be confiscation. Confiscation is the forfeiture of property on the ground of treason, or rebellion, or some public wrong done. Nothing of this kind is or can be even alleged in the present case. What is proposed cannot, therefore, be dignified with the title of confiscation. It is depriving Christian Churches and beneficent organisations of their property, when their offences are only that they have given umbrage to politico-ecclesiastical opponents by trying to do Christian work for the nation in accordance with the law of the land. Doubtless there have been imperfections in their work. But who can deny that on the whole they have done a vast amount of good, without which the nation would be in every way the worse? Confiscation is not what is proposed to be done by Parliament. It is something which will not bear to be described by its true name.
The educational work which the Churches have been doing has been in due sequence and in essential harmony with the whole course of national development in public education since the Whig Government of 1847, piloted by Sir J. Kay Shuttleworth, led in the way of combined denominational enterprise for the Christian elementary education of the people of England. Lord Granville, Lord John Russell, and Lord Shaftesbury were united in the initiation of this great work, and a letter was written by the Queen in approval and furtherance of the proposed legislation. That was sixty years ago. What is now proposed is antagonistic to the principles which have ruled for two generations. The two points to be noted are that the Churches have furnished the chief inspiration, and the Training Colleges the instruc- tion and training, for the work. In Scotland also, during the same period, a parallel movement, with necessary Presbyterian modifications, has been maintained. In both countries, notwithstanding ecclesiastical disparities arising from the dominant, although vari-coloured, Presbyterianism of the Northern section of the island, the teachers have been trained in Christian Colleges, with a view to their acting steadily them- selves as the Christian trainers of the scholars. David Stow, the author of the world-famous Glasgow training system, founded his system on this principle of Christian training as the governing idea of the teacher's work. Is the Prime Minister prepared to force the virtual secularism which is insisted on by his advanced partisans upon the churches and parish schools of his own country ? To me this seems impossible. And yet a Bill has passed its second reading which, if it means what it says, proposes to exclude the Christian Churches and the Christianly trained teachers from any share, as such, in the work of national educa- tion, while leading partisans of his following insult the Churches by talking of compensation for dismissal from the Christian service of the nation, by the payment of money rents for alienated schools and secularised Colleges.
—Thanking you for the opportunity you have allowed me for "liberating my soul" on this, the most serious national controversy of my prolonged lifetime, I am, Sir, &c., 79 Brixton Hill. JAMES H. RIGG.
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