THE BISHOP OF CARLISLE ON RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
TT is one of the conventions of our public life to speak with a certain contempt, even if it is what the "Nonsense Book" calls contempt mingled with affec- tion, of Bishops and their opinions. They are supposed to be timorous, if not actually time-serving, moderate to the point of tepidness, and worldly without the saving sense of the man of the world ; in a word, confirmed servers of tables. Yet we note that when there is a controversy of deep import to the spiritual and moral interests of the nation, and one which strongly affects the Church, it is usually a Bishop, and not a clerical zealot or an ecclesiastically minded layman, who says the best and wisest thing. The present discussion in the Press of the problem of religious education is no exception. By far the wisest and best thing yet said from the point of view of the Church is, in our opiaion, the letter contributed by the Bishop of Carlisle to Monday's Times.
The Bishop evidently realises that in all disputes like the present there is a hidden as well as an open factor to be considered. The hidden factor just now is the question of the Establishment,—that is, of the national position a the Church of England. The question of the Estab- lishment is not involved merely because of the hostility to the Church awakened by the unfortunate results of the Education Act of 1902. It is a wider and a graver issue. In the last resort the Establishment will only be tolerated, nay, be tolerable, if the Church is ready to claim, and to make good her claim, to be, not a sect or a denomination concentrated on sectarian or denominational aims, but the Church of the whole nation, tolerant and comprehensive, and willing to accept the difficult duties and obligations of that national position, and to sacrifice to it any narrower aims and. aspirations. If she will maintain that position, the Church will, we believe, in spite of many trials and much opposition, still retain the confidence of the nation at large, and so continue her connection with the State. At this moment she has a great opportunity before her for asserting the national, as opposed to the sectarian, position. If f he adopts the sectarian standpoint, she will follow in Lime footsteps of Lord Hugh Cecil and Lord Halifax, and insist that her essential aim and object must be to preserve denominational education, and before all things to obtain the maximum of State aid for the teaching of her own particular dogmas, leaving it to others, with a kind of contemptuous tolerance, to do the best they can for their own special tenets. If, on the other hand, she takes the national position, she will make it her prime care, as the Bishop of Carlisle has so nobly said, to preserve religious and Christian education for the nation as a whole. She will say It is our first duty as an Established Church, not to strengthen our organi- sation, or even our doctrine, but to see • to it that the children of the nation as a whole are not deprived of the priceless benefits of fundamental Christian education as part of their daily school teaching. It is our special business to represent and guard the Christian religion in all matters that concern the State, and to work for this end with all others who are willing to co-operate.'
If the leaders of the Church will only adopt this national and unsectarian attitude while the new Education Bill is going through the House, we feel certain that they will meet with a ready response from the nation, and that, as a result, not only shall we be saved from the great peril of secular education, but the true interests of the Establishment will be greatly furthered. Thousands of men throughout the country whose minds are now balancing on the question of the Establishment will say : After all, the Church can at a crisis rise to a higher view of duty than that of a sect, and is willing to sacrifice her own special interests for what she believes to be the good of the nation as a whole.' To translate the principle of which we are speaking into concrete action, the Church must not say : We have got an asset in the possession of a certain number of schools, and this asset we mean to use solely in Church interests.' Instead she must say : 'We will gladly sacrifice this asset if thereby we may prevent secularisation, and do a service to all the Christian creeds and Churches.'
Though we hold that the essential duty of the Church of England at the present moment is to concentrate her endeavours upon preventing secularisation, and on insisting that there shall be fundamental or Bible Christianity, or, if you will, undenominational religious teaching, in all State- aided schools as part of the regular curriculum, there is obviously no reason why, as a secondary object, the Church should not secure facilities for denominational teaching by the various Churches in all schools,—provided, of course, that it is the wish of the parents that their children should receive such special and extra religious teaching. In many cases we do not doubt that a very sound and useful influence would be introduced into our schools by such denominational teaching, whether given by the Church of England, the Wesleyan, the Congregationalist, or the Baptist clergyman. The supplementing of fundamental Christian teaching by denominational teaching is, in our opinion, indeed, a policy which.deserves support.
Of the bogey of religious teaching by irreligious men we confess that we find it very difficult to write with patience. In the case of the London School Board and other great School Boards throughout the country, we believe that this has never proved a practical difficulty, and we feel certain that the sincere and able men who sit on the Education Committees of the County Councils, together with the local managers, will be able with the greatest ease to prevent any scandal of the kind. The ordinary schoolmasters and schoolmistresses are not Voltaires in disguise, and in the very rare cases where a schoolmaster or schoolmistress has conscientious scruples as to giving a. religious lesson there should be no difficulty in making arrangements to meet the case. We cannot do better than conclude what we have written by quoting the admirable passage which ends the Bishop of Carlisle's letter :—" Two possible courses lie straight before us—secularism and non-denominational education as part of the school curriculum, supplemented, we earnestly hope, on one or more mornings of every week by facilities for denominational instruction ; and for the sake of countless multitudes of children, especially amongst the poor, whose best, if not only, opportunity of learning of Christ is in the day school, I most eagerly accept .the latter alternative." If it is in this spirit that politicians who represent the Church in the House of Commons approach the problem, we feel confident that a sound, a reasonable, and a national settlement may be achieved 'by the new Education Act. Throu;I: the accomplishment of such a settlement the position of the Church of England will not be jeopardised, but strengthened.
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