THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION IN PITBLIC EDUCATION.* THE authors of this
book describe it as a critical examination of schemes representing various points of view as to religious instruction in elementary schools. They have selected twelve of the most noteworthy of over a hundred schemes submitted to them, and, first allowing the individual protagonists to speak for themselves, they have appended to each proposal a few pages of illuminating commentary. Thus for the first time in the history of the controversy in this country we are given in an accessible form a clear and dispassionate statement of the wishes of conflicting parties. Moreover the value of the book is greatly enhanced by a well-written introduction in which the broad tendencies of modern educational thought are sur- veyed, and by an appendix on the state of the present law relating to religious education.
The three authors are themselves divided as to the course which public policy should immediately take, but they are enthusiastically united in urging the vital importance of the religious motive in education and in combating the drab solution of the problem which secularists would force upon us. To-day, however, there are not wanting certain indica- tions that unmitigated secularism is already beginning to lose ground. Five years ago its chances of victory, both at home and abroad, were probably stronger than they are now. In Australia the trend of public feeling, as shown by p/gbiscite, is towards more definite religious teaching. In France there is a widespread revulsion from the anti-religious innovations brought about, not in the interests of the children, but out of sheer hostility towards the clerical party. In England the spiritual awakening has not perhaps taken outward and visible shape to the same extent, but that it is strong enough to prevent the present generation falling back on the ex- pedient of excluding all religion from education is the firm belief of most of those who have studied the situation.
Coming to the twelve proposed solutions of the religions difficulty in England, which are set forth in this book, there is a crude and revolutionary Bill, described as the Liberal Members' Bill, which would trample ruthlessly on the rights and convictions of all minorities, and would incidentally put back the clock of educational administration to the days of 1870. Upon this scheme the editors' comment is as follows : "Thus 'democratic public control' is to deal with the indi- vidual parent and helpless minorities, much as the French Government is now carrying out the principles of the Great Revolution in the sphere of education. It is almost impossible to conceive that Englishmen would submit to a tyranny which is forcing some French parents to send their children out of their country in order that they may be educated in accord- ance with their own ideals and not those of a majority of the French democracy."
A more acceptable proposal included in the book is that which issues from the Educational Settlement Committee and which is associated with the name of Professor Sadler. The main lines of this scheme are now generally known. Broadly speaking, they consist of the voluntary transfer of denomina- tional schools in single school areas to the local authority, together with the recognition of alternative or denominational schools in districts which allow of the maintenance of more than one school. Undenominational instruction under public control is thus, in effect, to be brought within the reach of all children in all districts, while at the same time schools of a professedly sectarian colour are to be recognized wherever a choice of schools is possible. The criticism commonly levelled at this scheme is that it pays too little attention to the right of parents to have some say in the religious teaching provided This criticism two of the editors endorse, but they reserve the full weight of their disapprobation for the privileged supremacy which they consider is accorded by the scheme to religious teaching on Cowper-Temple or undenominational lines. Of no less weight is the scheme framed by the York and Canterbury Houses of Laymen and the National Society. This derives its importance from the fact that it indicates the lengths to which Churchmen are willing to go towards meet- ing the grievance of their opponents. Like the plan for Parents' Committees put forward by Mr. Hakluyt Egerton, the proposal of the Joint Church Committees is for a larger
Tho Religious Question in Patio Education. fly Athelmtau Riley, Michael E, Sadler, and Cyril Jackman, London Longuiana and Co. 1.8e. netd measure of control to be vested in the parents of scholars —a most desirable consumtnation in modern education. if only it could be genuinely worked. A. form of creed register is to be established, and it is to be the duty of the local education authority in the case of provided schools, and of the Board of Managers in the case of non-provided schools, to arrange for religious instruction in accordance with the stated wishes of the parents. Where, however, special instruction is demanded in the case of less than twelve children, then the local authority would be relieved of its obligation.
In addition to the secularist and Anglican proposals for a resettlement, the book contains schemes put forward by Non- conformist, Roman Catholic, and Jewish educationists, The details of these cannot here be enlarged upon, but it may be remarked that the conciliatory spirit in which almost all of them have been conceived makes it difficult to realize the white heat to which public temper has too often been inflamed by this question. In conclusion it is worthy of remark that, of the many constructive workers in this field, very few have hitherto paid adequate attention to the desperate state of religious education in our secondary schools, if only on the grounds that it is in these institutions that the elementary school teacher is now trained, it seems to be an essential con- dition of any lasting religious settlement that the secondary schools should also be taken into full consideration.
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