THE NATIONAL EDUCATION LEAGUE.
[TO THB EDITOR OF THE ° SPECTATOR...3
Srx,—Sharing as I do both the sympathy and the misgivings which you have expressed with reference to the policy of the Bir- mingham Education League, I await with great interest the development of their plans in the Bill which they have undertaken to prepare. In the meantime, there are some considerations, not brought forward in recent discussions, which it seems to me may be profitably suggested to those who are endeavouring to make up their minds on the subject. They relate partly to the question of religious instruction, partly to that of compulsory attendance.
In dealing with the former question, it ought to be remembered that we are now beginning to bring the secondary and higher as well as the primary education of the country under public super- vision. We are hoping to arrange grades, mutually related, each introductory to a higher, by which children of promising abilities
may ascend from the humblest social station. The whole system is to be retained under State control. This being the case, it is prima facie reasonable and desirable that the rule as to religious instruction in the more advanced schools should be preserved with any necessary modifications in the lower.
Now, it is possible to defend either a secular or an unsectarian religious scheme of instruction for primary schools on grounds which would suit this class of schools exclusively. For the secular, it may be said, "The State must insist that no child in the country shall be left ignorant of the elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Places must be provided at the public expense for the teaching of these rudiments, and the children now neglected and untaught must be compelled, by fines and flogging when necessary, to learn them. The State does not take upon itself the direction of education in general. It contents itself with prescrib- ing lessons in reading, writing, and arithmetic, leaving the higher and more delicate parts of education to the voluntary care of parents and religious bodies." For the unsectarian religious scheme, it may be contended, "The kind of religious knowledge which it is wise and usual to impart to children is, in fact, that which is held in common by all religious bodies. Anglicans and Nonconformists alike teach their children of the love and provi- dence of God, of the goodness and tenderness of Jesus Christ, of the duty of trying to please God, and similar universal lessons. Many earnest Christians would not care if their children of tender years learnt little beyond these rudiments of theology. But there would be no difficulty in supplying the "denominational atmosphere," and such farther instruction as might be thought desirable, at home, at church, without any want of harmony making itself felt by the children between the school teaching and the religious creed of the family." But the case is entirely altered when the question is no longer of the bare rudiments of know- ledge nor of tender years, but of the whole education of the youth. If history and the laws of life are taught on the secularist principle, you not only do not teach belief in divine purpose, you teach secularism. If you go on teaching to young men and young women the simple religion of childhood, you do in effect adopt what Mr. Lowe, I think, called a sort of Biblical Deism. Now, there is a good deal to be said for Deism, especially as a State creed, but we ought to know whether we mean to substitute it for Catholic Christianity or not. If we do not, then it would be folly to construct for our higher schools and colleges a scheme of instruction in which the residuary creed held in common by all religions should be assumed and taught.
Hitherto, so far as I am aware, there has been no movement in favour of imposing either the secular or the unsectarian religious form of education upon our secondary schools. Some important day-schools, it is true, have adopted with success a voluntary creed, liberal enough not to offend the prepossessions of any of the greater religious bodies. But a different plan, contrived to suit our present exigencies—that which has happened on the quaint name of the " conscience-clause " principle—has been recently allowed without opposition to be stamped upon that most important and fruitful piece of legislation, the reform of our middle schools. So far as we can see, whilst Englishmen hold to the creeds of the Church of England and the great Dissenting bodies, there is little chance of our higher education losin g its distinctive religious character.
If, then, it is taken for granted that the higher education of the country is to retain its denominational complexion, the State claiming to see that the instruction is good of its kind, and to look after the economics of the system, and to protect by a conscience clause the rights of dissidents,—is not this a strong and a new reason for preferring the same character for the primary schools, which are no longer to be the isolated effort and care of the State in education, but to be the introductory portion of a great national system?
Secondly, I go on to the question of compulsory attendance.
When it is proposed to enact that every child in the country shall be made to go to school up to a certain age, this provision gives a noble and thorough-going air to a programme ; but in choosing a policy we must go more into particulars, and see by following each step whether such an enactment is likely to be carried safely into effect. Does any one suppose that because the Sultan decrees a magnificent system of public instruction, every youth in Turkey will forthwith be educated? Now, it is argued, there is effective compulsion in Saxony and elsewhere, why should there not be in England ? To which there is this reply to be made. In the countries where compulsory school attendance exists, the population is also subject to other forma of compulsion, unknown in this country, to which the compelling of parents to send their children to school is a mere trifle. If we had first succeeded in enforcing the Prussian rule of military service in England, we might laugh at such a task as that of compelling school attendance. The truth is that the people in the more strongly organized countries are bred up under a discipline of compulsion, of which our people have no conception. Think of such things as the conscription, the necessity of carrying "papers," and the innumerable interferences with domestic life to which foreigners are trained to submit. Mr. Mundella says, "We have now a household registration, why not a registration of the children of school age ?" But have we compulsory house- hold registration? or will he try the useful work of enacting it? To refer to the success of compulsory attendance in countries so unlike ours is therefore almost irrelevant.
The total defect in our school attendance is due to two causes,— irregularity and entire absence from school. As to the former,— if all the children in the country attended school every other day, our statistics would report that half the children of the country did not go to school. It will be necessary to enact how irregular a child may be without subjecting the parent to a fine. But a certain number of children are absent from school for years together, and may be said not to go to school at all. These belong to the very poorest class. They are the children of parents kept at the lowest ebb by misfortune or by vice. They are either out at work, or wanted at home, or they have no shoes to go in, or they are delicate in health, or they perseveringly decline to go,—such are the reasons given. Now, this question arises: Would a local board send a poor man with twelve ragged children, or a strug- gling widow, to prison for keeping a child of eight at home to mind the baby? If exemptions at discretion are to begin, it is easy to prophesy that moat of the children who are now entirely without school teaching will slip through the meshes of the compulsory- attendance net. And at any rate, a scheme which professes to secure absolutely universal attendance will not necessarily have an advantage over other schemes which, without this professed absoluteness, aim at getting more and more children to school.
For my own part, I am in favour of all the compulsion possible; but I am doubtful whether it will be applied more effectually by local boards having power to fine and to exempt, or in some others of the various ways which have been suggested.—I am, Sir, &c., J. LL. DAvuis.
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