PROLEGOMENA TO COMPROMISE ON THE EDUCATION QUESTION. T HE general impression
left by the education debate last week—at least so we have read in various news- papers—was that compromise is in the air. Things that are in-the air have sometimes away of staving there. They never have any terrestrial life worth speaking of. We do not think, however, that this is likely to be true in the present instance. An educational compromise is too much desired by too many people not to take shape sooner or later. Many of our readers will possibly be puzzled when they read this. What, they will ask, is there to com- promise ? The Education Act is in itself a compromise. Everybody got something they wanted, nobody got every- thing. The Church got the maintenance of her schools thrown upon the rates, while at the same time she was alldwed to appoint the head-teacher inthose schools, and in this way to ensure his being a Churchman. On the other hand, she had to admit an external element into the management of every Church school to the extent of one- third, and for this external element no religious qualifica- tion was prescribed. The Nonconformists had the satis- faction of having a voice in the appointment of two out of six Managers in every Church school, and in consideration of this, and of the admission of Nonconformist children to the position of assistant and pupil teachers, they had to consent to maintain Church schools—except the fabrics— at the public cost. Surely a settlement arrived at after such long and heated debates cannot need to be taken to pieces again not two years from the time it was passed. Unfortunately, the compromise just described had several grave faults. The country at large was very willing to accept it, without much enthusiasm, indeed, but with entire contentment. But there were two minorities at least which regarded it with wholly different feelings. The Nonconformists became extraordinarily excited at the thought of a part of the Education-rate everywhere, and in many country districts the whole, going to benefit Church schools. They lost their heads— as it seems to us—over this grievance, and so exaggerated its proportions ; they forgot, and so allowed to lie unused, the advantage which the Act placed in their hands. It is quite true that in single-school districts where the one school is, as it usually is, a Church school many Nonconformists have had to pay an Education-rate for the first time in their lives. But against this must be set the right to appoint, by their representatives, two out of the six Managers of every Church school. No doubt that is only a minority, but it is a minority likely to exercise in many cases an influence quite out of proportion to its numbers. The ordinary desire of a committee of six will be to keep the peace among themselves, and the way to keep the peace is to give burning questions as wide a berth as possible. We believe that if Nonconformists had been willing to work the Act fairly, the County Councils would have put them on the Managing Boards of Church schools where there were many N onconformist children, and then, in order to prevent illwill or a possible recourse to the Conscience Clause, which the clergy seem for the most part to dislike, the religious teaching in a great number of Church schools would have been carefully weeded of everything that Non- conformists could object to. Instead of this, they took up almost everywhere an attitude of violent hostility to the Act, with the results we see in "passive resistance," and in the refusal of the Welsh County Councils to perform their statutory duties. There is a section of Churchmen who are no better pleased with the Act than the Nonconformists are. They complain that though it secures Church teaching in Church schools, it banishes it from provided schools. Yet these provided schools contain a majority of children who just as much belong to the Church as the children actually in Church schools. New provided schools are coming into being every day, while Church schools tend to grow fewer. Consequently the operation of the Act becomes more and more unfavourable to the Church. And even the Church schools have been maintained by a great sacrifice of principle. Church teaching is so far secured that a majority of the Managers must be Churchmen, but under the Kenyon-Slaney Clause this majority can, if they please, banish the clergyman from the school he has been accustomed to regard as his own.
We believe that this is a fair statement of the facts of the controversy, and we have no intention of going beyond the facts. A majority of Englishmen probably regard both these discontented minorities simply as inconvenient obstacles to the execution of an Act which but for them would give universal satisfaction. We are not in the least anxious to challenge this way of looking at the situation. Let us grant that the " passive resister " and the man who wants to get facilities in provided schools are equally wrong-headed. But there is no machinery that we know of for getting rid of wrong-headed people, and in the case of the Education Act they have very large powers of neutralising all the good it was designed to do. It is a very great mistake to suppose that the Act will revolutionise English education without creating any friction or meeting any opposition. There will be a good deal of both, and in order to overcome them we shall want the help and the goodwill of all friends of education. But this help and goodwill are paralysed by the action of these minorities. They are thinking only of amending the Act, and by the side of this the mere execution of it seems tame and un- interesting. More than this, when once the religious element finds its way into a controversy it is apt to swallow up all other elements. Wherever the Education Act is talked of, which of its provisions is the subject of conversation ? The management clauses. All its other and larger aspects are forgotten. And as long as " passive resistance " goes on on one side, and dissatisfaction with the working of the Cowper-Temple Clause increases on the other, this state of things can undergo no improvement.
There can be no question, then, that the compromise - which is said to be in the air has found its way there none too soon. The Act of 1902 has made one great and valuable change, a change the permanence of which is not threatened. It may even contain the best settlement—in theory—of the religious difficulty. But when both these claims have been allowed, it is still true that in practice the religious difficulty grows more acute every day, and that while it exists the real merits of the Act have but a poor chance of showing themselves. This is the case for compromise, and surely no better case could be made out.
" Passive resistance " may have its ludicrous side ; but we see no sign of its dying out, and unless it dies out it will remain a force strong enough to make the Act useless, even if it be not strong enough to get it amended. The compromise which at this moment perhaps would best please the House of Commons is one that goes by the name—not perhaps quite fairly—of the Bishop of St. Asaph. By this plan all elementary schools would become provided schools, with either the whole or the majority of their Managing Boards appointed by the local education authority. On certain days of the week the religious lesson would consist of the teaching at present given under the Cowper-Temple Clause in the Board-schools of London. It would be given by the regular teachers and would be paid for out of the rates. On certain other days the teaching would, for those children whose parents desired it, be denominational. It would be given by the regular teachers if they happened to belong to the denomination, or by volunteers if there were no regular teachers possess- ing this qualification ; but iu neither case would the teacher be paid for his time out of the rates.
A compromise on these lines has so sensible and practi- cal an air about it that we do not wonder that it should at the moment seem to command more general assent than any other. Indeed, it has only one fault ; but that is, to our mind, a fatal fault. It is not a compromise. It has not 'even the merit of completely satisfying one party; but even if it had, it would satisfy only one. If we want to restore religious peace in the schools, it will not be enough to please one set of malcontents ; we must find some middle term which will please both,—so far, at all events, as to remove any occasion for resistance based on principles. We must bear in mind, therefore, that if the Noncon- formists will not be satisfied until all rate-supported schools are placed under public control, there is a certain section of Churchmen which will not be satisfied until undenomi- national teaching is placed on precisely the same footing as denominational teaching,—given in the same hours, and paid for in the same way. Whether this latter contention be reasonable or not is to us a question quite as irrelevant as whether "passive resistance" be reasonable or not. What Governments and Parliaments are concerned with is the fact, not the explanation of it. If, therefore, a compromise is desirable in the interests alike of religious peace and educational efficiency, this way of getting at it may be dis- missed. There remain three alternative methods, any one of which would ensure religious equality. The first is the Scottish plan, which leaves every local authority free to teach any religion it pleases in its schools. The second is the German plan, by which the local authority appoints the teachers, but takes care that they shall be chosen in proportion to the religions of the children in each school. Both these schemes involve universal endowment. The third, which has as yet no distinctive name, is pre- ferred by a section of convinced High Churchmen. According to this plan, the children of the various religions, including undenomivationalism, would receive religious instruction at the same hour from teachers appointed and paid by the denominations. This scheme is based on universal disendowment. Whichever plan were adopted, it would probably be necessary to apply separate treatment to Roman Catholic schools, and to any others which satisfied the same conditions. The symmetry of the compromise might be impaired by this concession, but it would be immeasurably easier to get it adopted. Meantime we tie ourselves to no one of these plans. It is enough for the present to indicate them as possible solutions, and to point out that the elements of compro- mise are to be found in the education question. It is emphatically not one of those questions upon which either one side or the other must wholly carry the day, and the other be wholly beaten. •
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