THE GOVERNMENT AND THE EDUCATION QUESTION.
AS representing those who desire an equitable com-
promise on the education question, which, while making our educational system efficient, shall also leave it founded on religion, and, further, shall respect the rights of the denominations, we cannot but deeply regret the new policy adopted by the Government in the matter of the Training Colleges. We do not wish on the present occasion to dwell upon the abstract merits or demerits of what the Government propose to do. It is quite possible that if the history of the education controversy during the past five years had been different from what it has been, and if the persons chiefly concerned had not been inflamed by continuous and bitter controversy, the Government's proposals would be acceptable, or might be made acceptable with certain slight modifications. We are convinced, however, that in the existing circumstances it was most unwise of the Minister of Education to take the step he has taken. The Government's action in the present ferment of opinion in the Church of England can hardly do anything else but create the impression that the Liberal Party, having been unable to pass an Education Bill through Parliament which would clip the wings of the denominationalists, are now determined to do as much as they can to the same purpose through administrative action. Suspicion notoriously clouds the mind, and. just now Churchmen are extremely suspicious of anything and everything the Board of Education does in matters connected with religious teaching. That being so, can we wonder that at the present moment many Churchmen believe that the extreme Nonconformists, annoyed at the failure of Mr. Birrell's Bill, have induced the Government to punish the Church by an attack upon what has been described as their citadel,—i.e., the Church Training Colleges ? The extreme Noncon- formists are represented as having said to the Govern- ment Even if you cannot destroy Church predominance in the Voluntary schools by Act of Parliament, you can make the Church exoeedingly uncomfortable in the Training Colleges, and produce, indeed, a state of things so intoler- able that they will be glad to come to a compromise. That being so, we insist upon your taking the necessary action.' We do not ourselves suppose that the Govern- ment have yielded to such pressure, or, again, that pressure of so sinister a nature has, in fact, been applied to them. Considering, however, what has happened, we are not surprised that something of this kind is widely believed to be the reason of the Government action. Threatened men are always excitable, and excitable men are also always inclined to believe the worst of their opponents.
This is a fact which the Government, had they exercised their common-sense, would surely have borne in mind before they introduced their new regulations. Even if they think those regulations just per se, they should, as men of the world, have considered whether it was expedient at the moment to put them into operation. We will take it for granted. that the Government are really anxious to arrive at a compromise upon the education question, and that there is no truth in the assertion that they are going to introduce a. Bill next Session which will not be designed to pass, but merely meant to be rejected by the Lords, and so to help to make out a case against the Upper House. But if the Government desire, as we assume, to get their Education Bill through, they should surely do nothing to excite suspicion and create violent alarm in the Church, but, on the contrary, should as far as possible mollify the opinion of their opponents. Be the temptation to a policy of " thorough " never so great, it is obvious that no final solution of the education question will be reached through any scheme which involves ignoring the views of the minority, or trampling upon the religious susceptibilities, reasonable or unreasonable, of any large body of opinion. Experience has shown how fundamental was the mistake made by Mr. Balfour's Government and by the leaders of the Church of England in ignoring the opinions of the Nonconformists in 1902, and in assuming, because a certain line of action was reasonable and logical per se and also improved rather than the reverse the position Of the Nonconformists, that therefore it was safe to disregard. the vehemence of that opposition. As soon as the present Government came in we felt that the Liberal Party would find the education question far more difficult to deal with when in office than when in opposition. The moment they assumed power and began to legislate the positions were reversed. The Nonconformists became the dominant ecclesiastical authority and the Church the body which held itself to be a persecuted minority. But it is the nature of the British public to sympathise with those who are, or at any rate who think themselves, a persecuted minority. Hence, illogical as it may sound, a great deal of that general feeling which helped the Nonconformists in their appeals to public opinion against the Bill of 1902 has now gone over to the other side, and is determined, if vaguely determined, that the Church shall not be unfairly put upon. In fad, speaking generally, the education question is one in which the minority is apt to hold the trump cards. Unquestion- ably these are considerations which should have weighed with Mr. McKenna and the Cabinet.
No doubt it would have required a little firmness on their part to have explained these facts to the militant Noncon- formists who were pressing them to do something, and to do it at once, in order to prove that they were "in earnest over the education question," and did not mean "to betray their supporters," and so forth. But in spite of such rhetoric and such appeals, they would have been far better advised to have taken the line that they could not touch the question without the sanction of Parliament, and that the status quo must remain till they had drafted their new Bill. If such an attitude is declared imprac- ticable, and. if we are told that it was absolutely necessary for the Government to do something to appease the extremists, then our reply is that the Government have, in any case, done the wrong thing. Granted that there are not sufficient facilities for the training of Nonconformist teachers, why should. not the Cabinet, instead of doing what has so greatly perturbed and alarmed Church- men, have established by a special grant of money a new purely denominational Training College or series of Training Colleges ? It is impossible for them to urge that there was one way, and one way only, of meeting the complaints of the Nonconformists in regard. to the Training Colleges, and that that way is the one they have chosen. Again, if the point of time is pleaded, our answer is that a year would have been quite time enough in which to set up an additional Training College.
Before we leave the subject of the next Education Bill we desire to draw attention to an article on the new Bill in Tuesday's Tribune, which our contemporary declares it has received from "a very well-informed Parliamentary correspondent," and which it believes "to be of the first importance, and worthy of the most careful considera- tion." According to this correspondent, the new Bill will be based on the following principles :— "(1) In every district there mnst be within the reach of every child a public elementary school which the children of all denominations may attend without suffering any religious dis- ability. (2) Every public elementary school must open and close with some form of religious service (consisting of a hymn, the Lord's Prayer, and the reading of a passage of Scripture with- out comment) in which all children may tahe part without objection on religious grounds. (3) In every public elementary school there must be opportunities for every child to receive such specie/ religious instruction as its parents may desire. Such instruction must not be given during school hours, must not be given at the public expense, or by the publicly appointed teacher. The arrangements as to the time and place when such instruction shall be given shall (subject to certain restrictions) be controlled by the local education authority. (4) No publicly appointed teacher shall be permitted to give special religious instruction. (5) Any school now recognised as a non-Provided school may be carried on as an elementary school recognised by the Board of Education (but not by the local education authority) in which it
is shown to the satisfaction of the Board of Education that the parents of two-thirds of the children attending that school desire that it shall be so carried on. But no parent shall be compelled te send his child to such a school."
In effect, what these proposals come to is the creation of a Provided school in every district, supplemented by facilities for religious instruction for all denominations in all such schools out of school hours, and supplemented also by a scheme under which existing Voluntary schools may "contract themselves out" of the new Act, and be supported by a direct Government grant, provided that such is the wish of two-thirds of the parents of the children attending them. From certain points of view, these are not unlike the five points insisted upon by the Spectator during the progress of the Education Bill through Parliament. These principles were :— "(1) That teachers in transferred schools should not be for- bidden to give religious instruction on the two days when facilities for denominational education are allowed. (2) That facilities for denominational teaching should be given to all denominations in all schools. (9) That Clause IV. should be made mandatory. (4) That religious instruction, whether denominational or undenominational, should be given in school hours, though subject of course to the parent's right of with- drawing his child. (5) That Voluntary schools, if they so desire, should be allowed to 'contract themselves out,' and return to the system which prevailed before 1902, when they obtained no rate aid, but only Government grants."
It is to be noted, however, that in the Tribune scheme teachers in Provided schools are placed under the in- equitable disability of not being able to give special religious instruction, even though they may greatly desire to do so and may have time for giving it. Again, as will be seen, we held that the instruction given under the facilities clause should be given in school hours. The "contracting-out" clause is very much like that proposed by us. It must be observed, however, that the statement of principles in the Tribune would seem to destroy the religious instruction—i.e., Cowper-Temple instruction— which is now given in almost all Provided schools. The children whose parents did not trouble to avail them- selves of the denominational teaching would get no religious instruction whatever.—The hymn and prayer cannel- be regarded as instruction.—That seems to us most objectionable. We attach the greatest possible import- ance to the State recognising that it is its duty to give religious instruction to children, and not to treat religion as a fancy subject with which it has no concern whatever. To us it is utterly detestable that the State should seem to say to the various Churches :—" We will teach the children all that really matters, and when we have done that you can come and talk your platitudes to them as much as you like." But though we point out what seem to us defects in the proposals mentioned by the Tribune, we by no means desire to dismiss them, or to see them dismissed, offhand. It is quite possible that they might prove a basis for compromise.
We are convinced that the great majority of Churchmen are anxious for a reasonable compromise, and, that the Archbishop of Canterbury is in no sense committed to the extreme High Church view, either as regards " Cowper- Templeism," or other points over which the extremists have used suchvehement language. The effect, however, of action such as that of the Government in regard to the Training Colleges is to force men of moderate views like the Primate, and again like Sir Thomas Acland, into an unnatural alliance with the extremists. To put the matter shortly, if the Government desire an equitable settlement they must not create the belief among moderate Church- men that there is no hope of their getting justice from the Liberals, and that therefore they must unwillingly and in self-defence join forces with those whose views are represented by Lord Hugh Cecil and the Bishop of Birmingham.
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