TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE 'RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY' IN THE EDUCATION BILL.
WE publish elsewhere a letter on Mr. Forster's Education Bill, which no doubt touches the one point on which it will usually be supposed to be most vulnerable,—we mean its treatment of the religious difficulty. Our correspondent is a Liverpool man, and puts his case as it may probably be felt in large towns. His view is that Mr. Forster has not solved, but shirked the religious difficulty. But he means by shirking it, not himself deciding, but leaving to local authorities, like the proposed School Boards, the question if any religious teach- ing, and if any, what, shall be given to the children of new schools to be established in such large towns. He thinks that this option to the School Boards of selecting a religion to be taught in any of the new Schools will reawaken in the municipal elections all the old ferocities of the Church- Bate struggles, — that in spite of all Conscience Clauses, any such selection will be regarded as an act of favouri- tism by all the adherents of a religion not selected, and that it will practically lead to a great waste of re- sources by the setting-up in the neglected districts side by side of various less efficient schools of different religious characters, where a single absolutely efficient school, without any religious colouring, would otherwise have been enough. Though we do not at all admit that these objections have any sufficient weight to endanger this part of the Government Bill, we feel quite sure that the battle, so far as there is a battle, will turn very much more on this point than on any other in the Bill,—more even than on the question of the electoral body to which the choice of the School Boards is to be delegated, on which also there is and will be considerable difference of opinion.
But first of all, we may point out that no conceivable solution of this difficulty would have been universally accept- able ;—least of all, probably, that which our correspondent suggests, that the Government should have excluded religion absolutely from the teaching given by any school to be established and managed by a School Board. In the first place, as Mr. Forster pointed out, this jealousy of any given religious teaching is not a parents' jealousy,—that will be quite avoided by the strict Conscience Clause,—it is only a ratepayers' jealousy, a feeling of sectarian or party jealousy at allowing a nominal victory to any other sect. Now, it is a very serious question how far we ought to sacrifice a bonci fide civilizing influence of the highest kind to a mere excess of party rivalry of this kind ; it is a still more serious question whether any government would have been allowed to do so. Every parent's conscientious scruple has, of course, the highest possible claim on the respect of the State, and Mr. Forster's Bill embodies that respect in the most positive form. It is quite another matter whether the dislike of a religious minority to admit that they are in a minority, although they will have the most absolute protection against paying for any child of their faith being proselytized out of the educa- tion-rate, is entitled to any respect at all,—and still less to any which would demand so substantial a sacrifice as the absolute elimination of religion from the education of the poorest class, whether the parents wish it or not. Can any- one pretend a real conscientious grievance in the matter ? Can any party say they are paying for the inculcation of a religion they think false ? On the contrary, they pay for a good secular education, and not anything like the whole cost of that. The teaching would be no cheaper if religion were altogether excluded. The parents who do not withdraw their children from it (which they may if they please) would evidently prefer that it should not be excluded. Is it anything but simply absurd to talk of a ratepayer having a grievance because the school which his rate goes to establish offers only to those children whose parents like it a lesson in a religion with which he does not agree, but for the cost of which he does not pay an additional farthing His real grievance amounts to this, and this only, — that his special religion has not so many supporters in tthe town as some other, and that this fact is published. Will anyone seriously pretend to call that a grievance ? Will anyone assert for a moment that it is a grievance comparable in degree to that of the many ratepayers who might in the other contingency say : We believe religious teaching to be the most civilizing of all kinds of teaching, we want to see our town civilized, and especially to see the children of the poorest and most miserable amongst us, who have least influences of any ennobling sort at home, brought up to know something of the dignity, destiny, and hopes of man; and we would pay willingly for that end; but this measure denies us all hope of this ; we are told peremptorily that the most civilizing of all studies is to be excluded from the school, not because the parents wish it, but only in order to appease sectarian jealousies ; and consequently we regard the rate you compel us to pay as rendered purposely less efficient,—to some real extent wasted and thrown away, for no worthy reason at all.' We cannot but believe that the grievances ' of ratepayers who made such a complaint as this would be far more real and serious than the grievance of a ratepayer who, wishing to have solely secular education in the public schools, found that, in addition to this, certain children whose parents wished it—but only these—were to receive a certain amount of religious instruction, in which, indeed, he himself might probably not agree, but which would cost him not a farthing extra. Say what you will as to the inefficiency of lessons in the Bible, nobody can pretend that a master of any ability, speaking freely his own thoughts, will not contrive to produce ten times as much moral impression on the minds of his scholars in the course of a lesson on a parable, or a beatitude, or a rebuke of Christ's, than he will be able to cram into all the arithmetic, geography, history, or other purely secular lessons put together. Or, if at least in the course of a history' lesson a skilful master may manage to introduce great moral lessons, it is only by a side-wind, whereas in a religious lesson they would be absolutely the main subject. Why, even the Birmingham League proposed to make the use of the Bible optional, and we do maintain with Mr. Forster that that either means something altogether a mockery, or the permission to the schoolmaster to explain freely what he learns from the Bible. If he be a wise man, he will, indeed, teach very little dogma to his class, but he will teach just as much as is esssential to his own spiritual faith, and without perfect freedom to teach so much he could make no effective lesson of it at all. The wanton exclusion of religion, without any need to exclude it, from the teaching of all the new schools to be erected, would be justly resented by a far larger number of ratepayers, and a far larger number of Members of Parliament, than will be likely to object to its inclusion under such equitable guarantees as Mr. Forster proposes. But then our correspondent replies that though the inclusion of religion in the subjects taught by an otherwise excellent school may not cost the ratepayer anything directly, it costs him a great sum indirectly, by providing a strong temptation for the erection of more schools than one, in neglected dis- tricts where one would otherwise be enough, in order to soothe the offended pride and allay the jealousies of com- peting denominations. Now, if it practically has this effect,. and multiplies inefficient denominational schools to prevent the necessity of deciding what religion, if any, or that no religion at all, shall be taught in the one needful school of any district, no doubt the Bill will do mischief. But we do not in the least believe in this supposed effect. Our corre- spondent says that in Liverpool it irno theory, but actual fact, that the most bitter quarrels have always taken place over the question of the religion to be taught in the two Corporation schools. No doubt,—though we are not told, by the way, whether it has been an absolute principle, a sine quit non of both schools to admit all children of whatever faith, to the secular teaching of the school, and to remit, for all whose parents object to it, attendance on the religious teaching,—a very im- portant point in determining the bearing of these bickerings on the present question. But in the next place, it is a very dif- ferent question, indeed, and one much more likely to give rise to religious quarrels, what religious policy to adopt for one or two schools in a vast town like Liverpool, than what religious policy to adopt for the whole town, where the School Board has power to display its impartiality by assisting the good schools of all denominations in all parts of the town, and is compelled to assist all impartially if it assists any. It seems certain to us that the actual operation of Mr. Forster's Bill, especially in the great towns, will take place in great degree through the clauses enabling the School Board to assist all qualified schools of all denominations. Now can our correspondent deny that the quarrel which is so apt to arise between two great denominations over the religious policy to be adopted in one or two schools, would be far less likely to arise when both the parties to it are perfectly well aware that they may hope to receive for their own favourite schools a
good grant out of the education-rate of the town ? There cannot be the same room for triumph over a decision as to the religious teaching of one or two schools in a town where schools of various denominations are all aided by the rates, that there, naturally enough, is now, when only one kind of religious teaching is recognized at all by the Town Council, and that is the subject of a conflict. Nor do we see the least likelihood that there will be a waste of money in the attempt to satisfy rival denominations by establishing in destitute districts, side by side, schools of various religions, where, had there been no religious difficulty, one good school would answer the purpose. For first, there is the great security,—one more likely to be too strong than too weak,—of the extreme unpopu- larity of a heavy rate. The Council of Education will, indeed, undertake to see that enough is done in every district to provide ample accommodation and adequate teaching on secular subjects for all the children between. five and twelve, and will interfere to keep any School Board to its duty that shirks its work. But though it declines to exclude religious teaching, it will afford no excuse for the multiplication of inadequate denominational schools simply for the sake of soothing religious jealousy ; and all the local feeling of the ratepayers will be opposed to spend- thrift rates. The School Boards with the duty imposed upon them of satisfying the central inspectors on the one side, and of making every penny of the educational rate go as far as it can on the other, and without any power—be it remembered— in themselves of increasing the rate at pleasure, will be simply unable to scatter largesse to the various denominations in the way our correspondent supposes. No doubt, they will much prefer assisting qualified existing schools to establishing new ones, because it will cost much less to do so ; but when it becomes a question of establishing new schools, they will be compelled to use the strictest economy, and an outcry would soon be raised if they built two or three inefficient ones side by side, instead of establishing one fully adequate to all the wants of the district. As for the denominations, they will soon see that their only chance of keeping the religious teaching in their own hands is to supply the main funds out of their own volun- tary resources, and only look to the help of the rates for extensions. The more exclusive and zealous denomina- tions,—like the Roman Catholics, for instance,—will not grudge,—indeed, they have never grudged,—this sacrifice for a cause so near their hearts. The less exclusive denominations will probably be quite content to get help for some one flourishing school of their own, and let all those children who live beyond reach of it go to the best public school in their neighbourhood, availing themselves, if they are fastidious, of the conscience clause in cases where it happens that there is religious teaching in the school, and that out of sympathy with their faith. But what we chiefly insist on is this,—that the right of all denominational schools which satisfy the Privy Council's requirements to receive assistance out of the rates, if any one of them is assisted, will go far to remove all that sense of mortification which the Church-rate contests used to excite. The Conscience Clause which makes every denominational -school receiving public aid available for all faiths, will remove the real grievance. The equal right of all denominations to such aid will remove the appearance of caste distinctions, the sense of privilege attaching to a special religion.
On the whole, the public have to choose between two evils, —the evil of letting the majority of ratepayers decide the religious teaching of the new public schools,—a teaching, how- ever, to which no parent is compelled to submit his children against his will,—or the evil of prohibiting religious teaching altogether in schools intended for the very children,—the children of the vagrant or dangerous classes,—who get the least such teaching at home, and who need it most to fortify them against temptation. We confess that the latter evil seems to us, and we believe that it will seem to the country, immeasurably the greater evil of the two.
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