RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION IN PUBLIC ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. [To THE EDITOR OF
TRH " SPECTATOR:1 Sin,—In your article of July 27th on "The Government and the Education Question" you say that you "attach the greatest possible importance 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 what- ever." I shall be obliged if you will allow me to point out that the treatment of religion as a fancy subject with which it has no concern whatever is not a principle of the 21ribuse scheme, to which the statement relates, nor is it a legitimate inference from the principle which is laid down in the scheme that no special religious instruction shall be given during school hours, or at the public expense, or by a publicly appointed teacher. The State is a secular institution com- prehending within it many and diverse religious institutions and many and diverse forms of religious belief, and it cannot be charged with indifference to religion or to religious instruction if, recognising this to be so, it proposes (1) to admit into all its public elementary schools the children of all denominations without suffering any religious disability, and (2) to give in such schools opportunities for every child to receive such special religious instruction as its parents may desire. Itself to give religious instruction would be either to set up a State religion, or to give such instruction as is claimed to be given by some one of the denominations to the exclusion of all the others, for to give such religious instruction as is given by all would be impossible unless their differences are nil, which they deny; nor would it be possible to give the instruction given by each, for that would imply a universality and versatility of religious faith and knowledge which is not to be expected of a publicly appointed elementary teacher. Indeed, the only religious instruction left open to the State is precisely an historical exposition of the differences of religious belief and ritual which make it impossible for the State directly to take part in general or special religious instruction. And an historical exposition of the fact of such differences is both possible and desirable, and should be made a conspicuous principle in the new Education Act, for it would both be proper in itself and be an introduction to the special religious instruction to which the State, in its wise comprehension of all religious beliefs, proposes, in the new scheme, to open its school- doors. But, further, the State, in the new scheme, does not limit its interest in religion to the provision of opportunities of special religious instruction by properly constituted religious authorities or persons • other than publicly appointed elementary teachers; it proposes as part of its own direct State-education to institute, at the opening and closing of each school-day, a religious ceremonial or service—a hymn, the Lord's Prayer, a passage of Scripture—in which all children may take part without objection on religious grounds. And I submit that such a ceremonial seriously and beautifully carried out is better calculated to achieve the end of bringing religion home to the child, and of associating its solemn issues with the child's daily life, than any religious instruction which can be devised to be given by a State which, composed of many forms of belief, is bound to be in its public instruction as impartial as it is itself secular.—I am, Sir, &c.,
T. J. COBDEN-SANDERSON.
[We cannot reargue the education controversy here, but we must register our protest against the assertion that "the State is a secular institution." We can admit no such contrast between the Church or the Churches and the State as our correspondent's words imply. We admit, however, that the State cannot in the matter of public instruction single out one creed and place it in a position of privilege. But the State can and does teach the simple fundamental truths of Christianity in its schools. Religious education under the Cowper-Temple Clause has been a signal success, and has provided a religious basis for millions of Englishmen and Englishwomen. The un- denominational religious ceremonial proposed by our corm- spondent is good as far as it goes, but it would be a national disaster to destroy the Cowper-Temple teaching now given in the Provided schools. No one asks for its destruc- tion except a few extremists, and it affords a common ground for the Anglican and Nonconformist Churehes. We must add that we cannot open our oolomns to a general correspondence on religious education.—En. Spectator.]
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