[TO THE EDITOR OF TOR " SPEcTATOR."3 SIR,—I should like
to be permitted to express my sincere admiration of the tone you have adopted in your article of April 14th in dealing with this Bill. Its great defect is that it is directed to remodelling the position of the managers of Voluntary schools, and hardly at all to advancing the interests of the children ; and you have hit the essential issue in urging that we should not be led into similar errors, but should think less of the rights and property of the Church, however wantonly interfered with, and more of what is offered as to preserving real religious teaching for the benefit of the scholars. The main point for every manager is to consider how far he can accept the facilities offered in satisfaction of the sacred trust confided to him by the founders of the school.
For my own part, I should feel that if I were secure as to the teaching of the doctrines of their religion twice a week by qualified teachers to the children of parents who belong to any denomina- tion, I could accept that as going a long way—perhaps as far as, in present circumstances, it is possible to go—towards fulfilling the objects of the trust. But the Bill in its present form offers no such security. You have pointed out the strong objection to forbidding the teachers of the school, if able and willing, to impart that special teaching at the cost of voluntary funds. And you have suggested an excellent alternative to the unreasonable condition that the " extended facilities " should only be given where four-fifths of the parents require it. But you have not men- tioned how illusory the whole scheme of these facilities is. First, the authority are not bound to maintain any religions teaching at all, and if at any time they abandon it, the special facilities must go with it. Next, the assent of the authority to the arrangement about facilities is by no means assured. It is entirely optional with them to agree to these terms, and we know for certain that a great number will not agree. Even if they do, they can at any future time withdraw from that agreement. There appears to be no mode of appeal against such a refusal or withdrawal. It may possibly be intended that the Commissioners who are to make schemes under Section 8 may have the power of enforcing such a condition as part of the scheme ; but it is not clear that this is meant, for they are to act only on reference from the authority, not from the aggrieved parties, the owners of the school, and the clauses of the section which follow refer to the fixing of a rent, not to the arrangement as to facilities. What we require and must fight for is that the obligation to grant these facilities should be as absolute as the obligation in Section 2 to bear the cost of the upkeep of the fabric.
But there is worse to come. It is curious how little attention has been drawn as yet to Section 6, which removes the half-hour for religious instruction from the time in which compulsory attendance can be enforced. By making the Scripture lesson voluntary, the Bill puts it on a lower level than the lessons in secular subjects, which are compulsory, and every one can judge how it will suffer in popular estimation. Who that knows child nature will doubt how the lesson will fare when there is the alternative given of play in the streets or playgrounds, or of selling newspapers, or earning a few pence ? At first, no doubt, the traditions of the past, the pressure of the teachers, and the influence of many parents will secure a modified attendance ; but gradually as the removal of obligation is realised, and the attrac- tions of freedom are felt, the classroom will become emptier, and in a short time the education in the schools will have become almost wholly secular. When their eyes are opened to this result, the great mass of what Mr. Birrell calls our truly Protestant nation, as well as Jews and Roman Catholics, will see the iniquity of the proposal, and those who see it mast take the earliest and strongest means of resisting it.
—I am, Sir, Sze., C. A. ELLIOTT.
Fernwood, Wimbledon Park.
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