FUNDAMENTAL CHRISTIANITY AND THE EDUCATION QUESTION.
[TO TILE EDITOR OF TUB "SPECTATOR:1
Sig,—May I add myself as one more to plead in your columns for the only solution of the religious question in elementary schools which will satisfy the vast majority of the clergy, and which alone will induce them to part with their schools ; and the on:y solution which will be fair to the children attending elementary schools and to their parents ? I refer to the solution known now popularly as "facilities." It recognises
this principle, which I believe to be the true Liberal principle, that parents have the right to decide in what religion their children are to be instructed. In every school where there are sufficient children to warrant it, arrangements should be made by the responsible leaders of the religious body to which those children belong that those children shall have such instruction given to them in school hours at least once a week by competent teachers. I think there is no doubt as to the practicability of the plan. May I give a simple illustration from what is perhaps the only London school which has adopted it 13 In the schools of , S. Anne's, Soho, there are a number of Jewish children. Five years ago the Rector of S. Anne's offered the Jewish Rabbi of the district the opportunity of instructing the Jewish children during the period set apart for religious instruction, and the offer was accepted. Every Wednesday for the last five years the Jewish Rabbi has come and instructed the children of his own com- munity in the Jewish faith. The arrangement has worked without a hitch. The same offer was made to the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes (who was then the leading Nonconformist minister in this district) with regard to any children of Wesleyans who might be attending the school. In this case the offer was not accepted, as Mr. Hughes said he felt no mis- givings that the church Catechism as taught at S. Anne's would prove subversive to the faith of Wesleyan children attending the school. I do not think that the multiplicity of Protestant sects would be a serious difficulty. It would be found, no doubt, con- venient to group a number of kindred denominations together; but, of course, the arrangement of this would bo left to the responsible teachers of the Free Churches. From the point of view of the Church of England, arrangements could be made in a satisfactory way. There are numbers of Church children attending every provided and non-provided school in this country. There would be a central organisation in every diocese under the Bishop working in conjunction with and through the several parishes to see that the work should be carried out effectively. What is now being done with success in one school could be done with success in others. In the case where only one or two children required separate instruc- tion, they would no doubt have to give way to the majority ; but where there are a substantial number needing it, arrange- ments would and could be made, and all grievances in "one- school districts" would be removed at once. This, in brief, is the system known as "facilities." For my part, the only objection to the system seems to me that under it no one would have a grievance to nurse. All other solutions of which I have read would not last, because they, would still leave large dissatisfied bodies aU over the kingdom.—I am,
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