THE EDUCATION WAR.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—I am quite sure that your usual impartiality and sense- of justice would have prevented you from publishing in its- present form the article in the Spectator of January 30th on " The Education War," if you bad read the article on the same subject in this week's Guardian. You affirm that "it. would seem as though the Radicals would greatly like to make the Education struggle a seven years' war." The. Guardian, on the other hand, as the recognised exponent of the Anglican position, publishes " Suggestions for the Education Battle " which, if acted on, would involve not "a seven years' war," but a struggle a outrance, to terminate only when denominational teaching has triumphed everywhere. That I am not exaggerating the case will be manifest by the three following " suggestions ":—(1) That the Rev. F. Chenevix Trench has found a "most effective method" of attacking undenominational teaching by requesting the parents in his parish of Orpington "to withdraw their children from the religious teaching of the Board-school and- send them instead to him ; " (2) " another line along which. Churchmen may fight the education battle " is to do "all in. their power to make it law that the Education Department shall recognise 'unnecessary' schools in cases where these schools supply a genuine want of denominational teaching on the part of an appreciable section of the population; " (3) that. Churchmen should work for the "repeal of the Cowper- Temple clause."
As a Radical of the theological centre I would like to point out that this article clearly shows that we who wish to• maintain Bible teaching in Board-schools on the basis of Mr. W. H. Smith's famous resolution of 1871, " with explanations by the responsible teacher suited to the capacity of the children," ought not to be described as wishing to wage a "seven years' war" because we seek to defend ourselves against the determined attack of the Guardian and its supporters, an arrangement which worked excellently for a quarter of a. century until that unhappy day when the Rev. J. J. Coxhead heard a child adopt a phraseology the converse of that used• by St. Luke, and say that Joseph was the father of our Lord. Surely the " war " dates from that unfortunate moment, andi is not of our seeking.—I am, Sir, &o., HENRY S. LUNN, M.D.,
Hon. Secretary of the Bible Education Council. 5 Endsleigh, Gardens, N.W., January 31st.
[It is quite possible that both statements may have been true. Evidently the Radicals want to make the Education question the main question of this Parliament. Perhaps some of the ultra-Conservatives may wish it also.—En. Spectator.]
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