RELIGION IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS

PROPOSALS FOR PEACE

THE growing importance of the question of meeting the religious difficulty in Board schools and of affording adequate financial relief to voluntary (or denominational) schools, in which religious instruction is already given, must be my excuse for attempting, within the short limits of this paper, to give some clear information as to the demands of that large and, as I believe, increasing proportion of the community who, from whatever motives, whether political, social, or religious, wish to get this question settled on a basis which will be firm and durable, because it is felt to be fair all round and to give reasonable satisfaction to all parties. It is increasingly felt by all reasonable persons that some method of preserving denominational schools must be worked out, if only from motives of economy. The annual cost of substituting Board schools for voluntary schools would be some 1,300,000l., exclusive of a fair rent for the buildings taken over, upon which the Church of England alone is estimated to have laid out about forty millions.

It is a commonplace of history that a majority is more difficult to move than a minority; and that a minority, by virtue of its greater compactness, and sometimes by its greater shrillness, frequently manages to get its own way, to the exclusion of the more torpid and inarticulate majority. 'Be my brother, or I will kill you,' has been the cry of young democracies in many parts of the world. The wiser motto, Live and let live,' comes later. It is because I think that signs of the approach of this maturer wisdom may be discerned on the horizon that I venture to attempt a general survey of the field, and an approximate estimate of the various forces which fill it.

The general course of educational legislation and administration during the last twenty-five years has resulted, however unintentionally, in an attitude of fixed hostility between the supporters of undenominational and secular education on the one hand, and those of religious and denominational education on the other. And, further, it has even sown the seeds of suspicion between various regiments of the upholders of religious education.

The desire and longing of men of goodwill on all sides is, as I think, coming to be this: that these now opposing forces should be so marshalled that, instead of their being pitted against one another, they should march side by side, with no other contention than that of a generous rivalry, against the common foes, vice and ignorance. The present contentions and jealousies are playing into the hands of these two common enemies. No progress can be made against them unless a feeling pervades all ranks that equal justice is meted out to all. France was vanquished, in her great struggle of a quarter of a century ago, in great measure because she could not bring herself to accept the support of her Catholic Bretons.

The tangible-or, rather, legible-signs of this rising desire for fair play in the education field are as follows. I mention them in the chronological order of their appearance.

1. The Roman Catholic Archbishop's and Bishops'

4. The Archbishops'' Advice' upon the above Report, June 1895.

The Roman Catholic Resolutions state clearly and temperately the principles by which all who value definite religious instruction are guided; and the Draft Bill founded upon these Resolutions throws into the form of an Act of Parliament a method of carrying them into practice. The Draft Bill consists of two clauses. By Clause I. leave is given in any School Board district to any person or persons providing funds for the purpose' to open a public elementary school, with right of receiving annual support from the Education Department and the School Board, on condition (a) that the parents or guardians of thirty children of school age wish for such a school, and intend to send their children to it; (b and c) that the plans of the school are approved by the Department, and carried out to its satisfaction; (d) that the school be a public elementary school in accordance with Section VII. of the Education Act of 1870 (the so-called Conscience Clause); (e) that the board of management consist of at least five persons, to be elected in the proportions of two by the parents and guardians, and three by the founders or trustees.

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By Clause II. (a) the managers of such school are to be entitled to claim from the rates of the district such sum per head for each scholar certified for as shall be equal to the amount per head expended by the district out of the rates in its own Board schools on the teaching of its scholars; and by Clause I. (c), in lieu of rent for

school buildings, to receive an annual allowance for each scholar certified for equal to interest at 2 per cent. per annum on the capital amount per scholar expended by the School Board in providing school accommodation for its own scholars.'

I now turn to what is commonly called Mr. Spottiswoode's Scheme. As the official title of this scheme is very long (though not unnecessarily so, considering the wide scope of the scheme itself), I hope my readers will allow me to call it by its popular name, although I believe it is generally known that I am only one of several persons who co-operated in its production.

This scheme is the only one at present before the public which deals with the large number of children belonging to the Church of England (and possibly of other religious bodies) who attend Board schools, but whose parents-it is believed, and, to a great extent, known-would prefer their receiving that definite religious instruction which, in very many cases, cannot now be obtained in Board schools. But I pass by this point for the moment.

Like the Roman Catholic Draft Bill just noticed, this scheme would allow (by Section VIII. in School Board districts, and Section XI. in non-School Board districts) the erection of new denominational schools under certain circumstances, subject to the approval of the Education Department, and the payment to such schools respectively of a sum not exceeding the average education charge for each child in the Board (or denominational) schools of the same district.'

This scheme provides also that where for a period of not less than three clear official years next preceding not less than threefourths of the children in any given Board school in the district have belonged to' any given denomination, where a satisfactory board of managers is constituted and is willing and able to supply the building charge of the school, such school may be handed over to such denomination at a rent not exceeding the building charge, and may receive an annual sum for the education charge, as above. Conversely, on a subsequent material alteration in the relative strength of the religious denominations, in a school so transferred, being established, the school may revert to the School Board, or be managed by the members of the requisitely preponderating religious body.

In any scheme of public aid to voluntary schools the question of management is a burning one. How to reconcile the rights of the paying body and some rights must by all reasonable people be allowed to be due to it—with those of the managers and maintainers of the school is the problem.

If rate aid should be the ultimate outcome of the present movement in favour of denominational schools, I think it will be allowed that the solution which this scheme provides is a reasonable one. The board of management, it is proposed, should be constituted

as follows: 'One half, or not less than one third, of the members shall be nominated (a), as to one member, by the School Board or the County (or District) Council, as the case may be, from among their own body or otherwise; (b) as to the remaining members, by the trustees of the school (if any), who may appoint themselves, or otherwise by the local governing body of the denomination. The remainder of the members shall be elected by a constituency of ratepayers of the School Board district who also are (a) parents of children, or (b) annual subscribers of 17. to the school. All managers to be bonâ fide members of the denomination to which the school belongs, the fact being determined, in case of dispute, by the denominational authorities.' In a board of management constituted as above it will be seen that, as to the first portion of the board, the body representative of the ratepayers have one official seat; and as to the second portion, the ratepayers themselves (so long as they are parents or subscribers) elect the whole.

To state the matter in a different way: as the rates which any denomination pays are proportional to the number of children in it, the share of rates paid to a denominational school is nothing more than a refund of what the denomination themselves (and no one else) have paid, and the parents of children have practically allocated these rates towards that school by the fact of sending their children to it.

To me personally the ratepayer does not seem to be necessarily an enemy of the Church or of voluntary and denominational schools; and I consider that a board constituted as above would afford ample security against the mere mischief-maker. If a denominational school is well managed, it is impervious to attack; if ill managed, the sooner it is reformed the better.

The above will be, I think, a sufficient outline of this scheme. Details, safeguards in particular instances, and other minor matters, are provided for, and can be found in the scheme itself.

The Report of the 'Committee appointed by the Archbishops to consider the present condition of Voluntary Schools' has been so widely circulated, and so much discussed, that it is perhaps unnecessary to go into minute detail in explaining its recommendations. Its great-perhaps its chief-value is its acknowledgment, tardy though it be, of the reality of the pressure upon voluntary schools. The Report points out certain counties and cities in which the pressure is said to be severe. In this it is no doubt correct; but the Report does not state the real cause of the pressure. This is not the locality itself so much as the fact of the co-existence of Board and voluntary schools in such localities. In those rural villages where the voluntary school amply supplies the necessary school places no particular pressure is felt; in others, in which the School Board has exclusive possession of the field, no pressure is felt. It is where the

Board schools, with their fine new rate-paid buildings and the 'upto-date' apparatus, also rate-supported, overwhelm the older, meaner, poorer National or Roman Catholic school that the pressure is keen, and sometimes mortal.

Again, there is the frequent case of a locality with a sudden, overwhelming influx of population. Its wants have hitherto been fully supplied by the voluntary school, but now the school requirements of the new comers must be provided for, and at once. A School Board is demanded; but, when once established, this ambitious body is too often not satisfied until it has not only supplied the need on account of which it was created, but has starved out the voluntary school also.

Churchmen have often been blinded as to the stern reality of this pressure by hopeful statements as to the increase in the number of Church schools and of places in them. Places in Church schools have, it is true, increased from 1,365,080 in 1870 to 2,702,978 in 1894; but the proportion of places in all voluntary schools has within the same period diminished from 100 per cent. to 62.3 per cent., and continues to fall, while Church school places are now only 46.3 per cent. of the whole, instead of 72.6 per cent.

The remedy proposed by the Archbishops' Committee is that which chiefly differentiates it from the other two proposals. As is well known, the Committee could not come to any approach to a unanimous conclusion in favour of any plan for assistance from the rates, and therefore suggested that the Imperial Government, as is done to a great extent in Ireland, should take on itself the duty of maintaining the entire staff of teachers. The originality of this plan, which has been much talked of, is somewhat overrated, as the suggestion is only a recurrence to a long-abandoned practice of the Education Department. However, if otherwise unobjectionable, it would be none the worse on that account. It must not be forgotten, however, that in this plan there lurks the danger of State payment leading to a claim for State appointment and dismissal.

It is seriously questioned by some whether undue prominence is not given in the Report to the necessity for maintaining denominational schools very largely out of voluntary subscriptions. To many the real strength of the position of such schools seems to lie in their denominational or religious rather than in their voluntary element. That aid from public moneys of any kind towards giving secular instruction should be denied to any school whatever because religious teaching is, or is not, superadded surely savours of religious persecution, and should not be tolerated in the present day. The Roman Catholic scheme boldly demands a full share of such moneys; and if any less be accepted in order to promote a speedy settlement, it should be taken under protest, as it were, rather than with effusive gratitude for deliverance from prospects of extinction.