• THE ESTABLISHMENT OF FUNDAMENTAL ' CHRISTIANITY IN STATE SCHOOLS.
HATE VER may be the, ultimate fate of the VT Education Bill, and whatever mistakes in general policy-or in detail the Lords may make in their subsequent handling of the measure, they have at any rate done one good service,— a service for which the country as a whole Owes them a deep 'debt of gratitude. They have by a large majority declared the principle that it is the business of the State to concern itself not merely with utilitarian education and with such material matters as reading, 'writing, and arithmetic, but that it is also its duty, and an essential duty, to see that all children whose parents do not deliberately object shall be educated by the State in the fundamentals of the Christian religion. They have, in other words, established " Cowper-Templeism,"—that simple Bible Christianity which has been so shamelessly and so unjustly attacked by the extremists in the Church of England, though not, we are glad to say, by the ecclesiastical head of the Church of England, nor by her wisest and most loyal sons. That the establishment of the so-called Cowper-Temple religion, the religion which we were at one time told was a Nonconformist creed necessarily inimical to the Church of England, is the result of the 'vote in the Lords is patent as soon as the facts; are considered. The Lords' amendment makes it obligatory That some religious instruction shall be given in every public elementary school in the land. But for the majority of existing schools, and in all probability for all schools if the present Bill passes, the ordinary and regular religious instruction will be given in accordance with the Cowper-Temple Clause,—will be, that is, the simple fundamental Christianity which has been denounced as "Board-school Christianity. Under the new Bill, in many schools—and, for ourselves, we hope in all—facilities may be given for extra denominational teaching ; but the groundwork, at any rate, will be Cowper-Templeism. That, since no one proposes to repeal the Cowper-Temple Clause in the Bill of 1870, will be the " some ' religion which is laid down in the Lords' amendment.
We need hardly say that to us this result is most satis- factory, and we sincerely hope that the Lords will be able to maintain, both against the Government and the extremists in the Church of England, the obligation which they have laid upon all the local education authorities in. England to provide instruction in the fundamentals of Christianity. Those who for party or sectional purposes in the House of Commons so rashly, and, as we hold, so unpatriotically, denounced the Cowper-Temple teaching, and declared that it was useless or worse than useless, will find, no doubt, considerable difficulty in dealing with the new situation. They must, however, be left to get out of the slough into which they have floundered as best they can. At any rate, they entered it with their eyes open. As we have pointed out above, the Archbishop of Canterbury and those who follow him are in a perfectly sound position. Even though demanding facilities for supplementing the Cowper-Temple teaching, they have never condemned it as bad in itself, but have declared it to be a good foundation, and infinitely preferable to any form of secularisation.
We regret very much that the Government in the House of Lords should have treated Lord Heneage's amendment as hostile to them and their Bill. As a matter of fact, it was nothing of the kind, but merely translated into action the well-reasoned defence of Cowper-Temple teaching which was again and again given by them in the House of Commons. When it was proposed in the House of Commons that the schools should be secularised, the Government refused, and, in effect, based their refusal on the .fact that Cowper-Temple instruction was well worth giving, and ought to be given, in all schools provided at the public charge. Hence they would have found no difficulty whatever in accepting what we have described as the establishment of Cowper-Temple instruction. The attitude they took up in the Lords was, in truth, a reversal of the sounder and better view which governed their policy in the Commons.
It is, we believe, an open secret that the action-of the Government in this particular case was controlled by the fear of the Welsh Party in the House of Commons. The vast majority of Liberals throughout the country are not only perfectly willing to make it obligatory on the local education authorities to give instruction in simple Bible Christianity in their schools, but ardently desire that such instruction shall be given as a matter of course in all schools and in school hours, subject only to a Conscience Clause. It appears, however, that in a large part of Wales the local majority object to any religious instruction being given in the State schools. This strange position is obviously not due to any fundamental objection to religious teaching amongst Welsh Nonconformists, but to a mistaken, though no doubt honestly held, belief that religious instruction should be confined to Sunday-schools and other voluntary agencies. But even if this is so, we cannot admit that the local majority in Wales—which is, after all, but a minute fraction of the English people—should be allowed to dominate the whole situation, and to frustrate that State obligation to give children instruction in Bible Christianity which is the desire of the vast body of Englishmen. Mr. Birrell pointed out that it is the fate of minorities to suffer. Without accepting to the full this declaration, we may go so far as to say that it is at any rate not unjust to declare that minorities, even when they are Welsh minorities, should not control majorities.. Earnest and serious minorities must sometimes yield, and this seems to us a most proper occasion for their doing so. It is not as if Welsh Nonconformists were to be made to send their children to religious lessons given under the Cowper-Temple Clause. They can, if they dislike such instruction, withdraw their children under the Conscience Clause. All we ask is that the State should institute the open Bible in its schools, and should thus offer instruc- tion in the fundamentals of Christianity to all children whose parents do not refuse it. That the Welsh Noncon- formists—or, rather, a section of them—should be allowed to forbid the establishment of the open Bible throughout the length and breadth of the land in our State schools seems to us an act of tyranny which in the long run the country will not sanction. That being so, we sincerely trust that the Government will insist on having their own way, and will determine to carry into aetion that wise and strenuous defence of Cowper-Templeism which they made last summer in the House of Commons.
Before we leave the subject of the debate in the Lords we desire to commend to Lord Lansdowne, as Leader of Opposi- tion in the House of Lords, a suggestion which we made when the Bill was going through Committee in the Commons, but which, unfortunately as we believe, was not taken up by the Government. It is that a clause should be introduced in Committee which shall destroy once and for all the weapon of "passive resistance." As we pointed out, there is no sort of reason why the failure to pay an educational rate should be visited with imprisonment. There are other rates which are collected simply by the process of distress,—for example, the rate under the Public Health Act. Let a clause be passed making the Edu- cation-rate collectable on similar terms. The drafting of such a clause presents no difficulties. All that would be necessary would be to enact that "the provisions of 43 Elizabeth, c. 2, and of 12 and 13 Victoria, c. 14, so far as they concern the mode of collection and the penalties for non-payment, shall not apply to any rate levied under this Act." If this is done, we shall hear no more of the scandal of "passive resistance," and shall render nugatory the anarchical suggestions in favour of "passive resistance" and an imitation of the "Plan of Campaign" which have been recommended by Lord Hugh Cecil as the course of action which Churchmen ought to take, provided the Bill does not pass in the form in which they desire it should pass. The "passive resister" is often a well-meaning man, but his action is essentially that of a bad citizen. It appears to us ridiculous to leave the law of the land in such a state that it positively incites men to acts of bad citizenship.
Previous page
