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THE POLICY OF
SECULAR EDUCATION
BY
HALLEY
STEWART
President of the Secular Education League
Secular
Education League,
12 PALMER St. 8- W.L
[reprinted,
by kind permission op the editor, prom the
“ NINETEENTH CENTURY AND APTER,” APRIL, 1911 ]
��63)4?
THE POLICY OF SECULAR EDUCATION
HE last Education Bill worthy of the name was that which was
introduced by Mr. Balfour and passed into law in 1902.
Whatever its merits and demerits, it was a measure vitally affecting
the organisation of elementary education in England. It did what
the Conservative party had long aimed at. By placing practically
the whole cost of elementary education upon the rates and taxes it
gave the Church of England schools a fresh lease of life. But it did
something more than that: it abolished the old School Boards, and
placed education under the authority of the Urban and District
Councils. This was a change of the first importance, whether for
good or ill as various sections of the religious world regarded it; a
point with which the present article has no special concern. Mr.
Balfour’s Act profoundly affected the educational system of the
country besides providing large additional funds to meet the
necessities of the Church of England schools, which were being outrivalled by the better-equipped Board schools. Nothing of the kind,
however, can be said of the three Educational Bills of the Liberal
Government introduced by Mr. Birrell, Mr. McKenna, and Mr.
Runciman. Those Bills were simply readjustments of ecclesiastical
control over national education. They might be called redistribu
tions of religious privilege amongst the principal Christian Churches.
The stubborn attitude of the Catholic Church had secured all that it
required, and it was allowed virtually to stand outside the general
system of education and enjoy a contract of its own with the State.
Jews, Agnostics, Secularists, and Ethicists were not thought impor
tant (that is, powerful) enough to trouble about. Eor them there
was the Conscience Clause. There remained, broadly speaking, the
two great antagonists, the Established Church and the non
established Churches, which for this purpose counted as one. It
was substantially their battle. The effect of all three Bills would
have been (1) to make it more difficult for the Established Church
to maintain its elementary schools, and (2) to set up a system of
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T
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THE POLICY OF SECULAR EDUCATION
religious teaching agreeable to the Free Churches in all the Council
schools throughout the land as a civic religion.
This view of the matter is strenuously and even indignantly
denied by the spokesmen of the Free Churches. They are perfectly
satisfied that the Church of England seeks its own advantage and
nothing else in regard to national education, but they treat it as a.
kind of blasphemy to suggest that the Free Churches are tarred
with the same brush. Gladstone saw clearly enough what the plain
issue was in 1870. For his own part he rather favoured secular
education, and in private he was loud in denouncing “ the popular
imposture of undenominational instruction.”
Lord Morley, in
dealing with the whole controversy over the first Education Act,
does not hesitate to say that “ at bottom the battle of the schools
was not religious, but ecclesiastical.” “ Quarrels about education
and catechism and conscience,” he adds, “ masked the standing
jealousy between Church and Chapel.” “ The parent and the
child,” he notes, “ in whose name the struggle raged, stood indif
ferent.”1 They stand indifferent still. The war over religious
teaching in elementary schools is a clerical war. Even when
School Board elections were heated sectarian quarrels, the great
mass of the ratepayers did not go to the poll. They take less,
rather than more, interest in the quarrel nowadays, for the people
are recognising clericalism as the enemy in every civilised country.
The parents and children are never heard of, except by proxy, in
this dispute, which is carried on exclusively by the representatives
of other interests than theirs. Lord Morley’s quick phrase sums
up the whole matter. The quarrel over education is a quarrel
between Church and Chapel. The choice between the policies of
these rivals is the only one presented to the people in a country
where religious congresses never tire of lamenting that four-fifths
of the adult population seldom or never enter church or chapel.
Politicians are slow to learn, but it should be easy for them tosee that the incubus on education all along has been the assump
tion put forward on behalf of the Churches that it is their right,
in the very nature of things, to have special consideration shown tothem. All the controversy and strife has sprung from this cause.
And the mischief will continue until statesmen learn—and are bold
enough to act on their knowledge—that members of Churches,
however powerful and distinguished, should be treated only ascitizens in regard to all political and social questions. The interests.
1 Life of Gladstone, Vol. II., pp. 306, 307.
�THE POLICY OF SECULAR EDUCATION
5
of their special religious organisations should be nothing to the
State. Fortunately, this view is finding ever wider and wider support
both without and within the Churches. A strenuous effort is being
made to prevent the perpetuation and extension of the odious
injustice which is inflicted by those who secure the propagation of
their own religion in the nation’s schools at the expense of the entire
community. It was for the object of uniting the supporters of this
view in an effective organisation, irrespective of their views on other
matters, that the Secular Education League came into being. The
League neither professes nor entertains any hostility to religion. It
simply regards religion as a personal and private matter, which all
should be free to promote in voluntary associations, but which
should never come under the patronage or control of the State. The
League takes its stand on the principle of citizenship, with freedom
and equality for all in matters that lie beyond. Ministers of religion
sit on the General Council and also on the Executive Committee
with well-known non-Christians. Without the invidiousness of
citing names it may be mentioned that one of the earliest members
of the General Council was the late Mr. George Meredith, and the
first President of the League was Lord Weardale.
The Secular Education League has been boycotted by most of
the newspapers, who have taken sides for Church or Chapel in the
education struggle, and follow the English plan of ignoring, even as
news, what is against their own policy. But no boycott can prevent
the inevitable. The separation of the temporal and spiritual powers
is surely, if slowly, prevailing in every civilised country. It has
dealt with one department of public life after another, and it will
finally settle the question of national education. This has already
happened in France, and we are on the way to it in England. We
are nearer to it, perhaps, than is usually believed. In the article by
the Rev. Professor Inge in the September number of this Review, it
was admitted that “the potential strength of the secularist vote is
far greater than most friends of religious education at all realise.”
“ The danger of complete secularisation,” he said again, “ is far
greater than most religious persons imagine.” The same confession
was made by two other members of the Education Settlement
Committee, writing elsewhere1 in behalf of the programme called
Towards Educational Peace. Dr. M. E. Sadler said that “ strong
forces are pushing English education into secularism.” This was
his opening sentence and the reason of his article. Further on he
Contemporary Review, September, 1909.
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THE POLICY OE SECULAR EDUCATION
referred to what might soon be the fate of religious teaching “ if
public opinion once turned decisively towards secular education,”
and added, what to him is evidently the alarming announcement,
that there are many signs that such a change may quickly show
itself.” This statement was even more strongly expressed on a later
page. Dr. Sadler remarked that “ most cool-headed observers who
have travelled in the United States and in the British Colonies
would be inclined to predict that the secular solution is most likely
to be adopted in England as the next step.” “ I am bound to admit
this likelihood,” he said, “ though I deplore it.” The Rev. J. H.
Shakespeare used words very much to the same effect. After
declaring that religious education must and would be preserved ; that
ethics divorced from religion were not only of no value, but posi
tively dangerous; and that the people were dead against secular educa
tion ; to give gravity to his warning of his fellow religionists, and to
justify his own anxiety, he almost involuntarily disclosed the actual
truth.
‘I do not agree with the Gibardian,” he said, “that it
[secular education] is a bogey of which we need not be seriously
alarmed. It has drawn perceptibly nearer. More and more men say
to each other : ‘ We do not wish it or like it, but it is better than this
endless and bitter strife!’”
Not one of these advocates who so dread secular education
definitely assigns any reason against it, but simply expresses his own
preference for religious teaching.
The champions of religious
teaching generally evade the question of principle. They treat
possession as more than nine points of the law. But the question of
principle cannot be evaded in that free-and-easy manner at the bar
of public opinion. The religious educationists will find that they
must give a better reason against secular education than the high
value they themselves set upon their own religion, which, by the
way, they generally assume for the purposes of this controversy is
homogeneous—as if there were no serious differences in doctrine,
and even in ethics, between the various Churches.
What right have they to impose their religious preferences upon
the rest of the community ? On that point the Secular Education
League issues a clear challenge. “ There can be no final solution of
the religious difficulty in national education,” it says in its manifesto,
until the Education Act is amended, so that there shall be no
teaching of religion in State-supported elementary schools in school
hours, or at the public expense.” This is the pivot on which the
whole struggle practically turns.
And the religious educationists
�THE POLICY OF SECULAR EDUCATION
7
will have to face the free and full discussion of the questions (1) why
the schools maintained by all the citizens should be made the homes
of sectarian teaching ? and (2) why religious teaching of any kind
should be supported at the nation’s expense—that is to say, at the
cost of citizens who are irreconcilably opposed to it as false and
harmful, or who, believing in religious teaching, are unalterably
opposed to its compulsory propagation at the national expense ?
But, although the discussion of principle is evaded by all sections
of religious educationists, they have their own peculiar way of
repelling the claims of secular education. That way is twofold,
negative and positive; the former consists in declaring that secular
education is impossible, the latter in declaring that it is mischievous.
Let us see whether it is either.
Mr. Shakespeare represents the politician as “ well aware that
the great mass of the people are dead against what is known as
secular education.” Dr. Inge, however, is of opinion that “ the
working-class parent is not interested in the religious education
controversy.” One would like to know on what basis Mr. Shake
speare makes his assertion. They have never had an opportunity
of accepting or rejecting the policy of secular education. How does
Mr. Shakespeare know what they would do if they had to decide the
question ? He does not point to a single fact in support of his view.
But a striking fact may be pointed to which is dead against his
theory that the mass of the people are dead against secular education.
“ The mass of the people ” is rather an elastic phrase, but it must
surely include the working classes. Now the organised working
classes, assembled in their annual Trade Union Congress, have
repeatedly declared in favour of secular education, and each time by
an overwhelming majority. The majority vote has only once been
less than a million; the minority has never reached a hundred
thousand. Even at the last Congress, when the Catholic delegates
made a pathetic appeal for fair play, and urged that Trade Unions
had nothing to do with religion, and therefore ought not to pass
resolutions against religious education in elementary schools, the
minority vote was only eighty thousand. And that is probably the
high-water mark of this intensely clerical agitation. For it will
certainly be pointed out at the next Congress that this pathetic
appeal of the Catholics for what they call fair play is founded on a
misconception. That the State should have nothing to do with
religion, precisely as Trade Unionism should have nothing to do
with it, is the very ground on which the Congress votes for the
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THE POLICY OF SECULAR EDUCATION
exclusion of religious teaching from the State schools. Up to the
present, at any rate, the organised working classes are decisively in
favour of secular education; and this fact plays havoc with Mr.
Shakespeare’s bold assertion. He takes his cue from the oppor
tunism of the hour.
Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, Lord Rosebery,
Lord Morley, the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and other
political leaders, frequently expressed their adherence to the principle
of secular education, although they never did anything for it in
Parliament. As there seems to be a general ignorance of this fact,
a few brief quotations may be permitted. Mr. Chamberlain, address
ing the Liberal Unionists at Birmingham in October, 1902, declared
his adherence to the educational policy that he had propounded
there in 1872 :—
I endeavoured to persuade my countrymen that the only logically just
solution of the great difficulty was that the national schools should confine
themselves entirely to secular instruction, and should have nothing whatever
to do with religious teaching. I should be delighted if I thought that this
were acceptable to the majority of the people.
Lord Rosebery, in his speech at the City Liberal Club in October,
1902, said:—
I suppose the ideal—logical and philosophical—-view of education is that
the State should be solely responsible for secular education, and that the
Churches should be responsible for religious education.
Lord Morley, in his speech at Queen’s Hall on the 20th of March,
1905, said:—
In regard to education, years ago he was in favour of secular, compulsory,
and free education.
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, in his very important speech at the
Alexandra Palace banquet on the 1st of November, 1902, said:—If we had our way, there would be no religious difficulty at all. We should
confine ourselves (I believe nine-tenths of Liberals would confine themselves)
to secular education, and to such moral precepts as would be common to all,
and would not be obnoxious to people who do not come within the range of
Christianity.
It is well known, in spite of the carefully doctored reports in the
newspapers, that favourable references to secular education in the
Liberal speeches at that time were greeted with enthusiastic applause.
The rank and file of the party appeared to be fairly ripe for the
“ secular solution.” But the party leaders determined otherwise.
They had political reasons for placating the Free Churches, and the
result was Mr. Birrell’s Education Bill. The excuse of the Liberal
leaders was that, although secular education was the wise and just
�THE POLICY OE SECULAR EDUCATION
9
policy, the people would not have it. That pretence has done duty
ever since, and consequently we must not be too severe on Mr.
Shakespeare, whose rash statement has no claim to originality.
So much for the negative objection to secular education; the
positive objection is equally false and far more sinister, and on this
side of their controversial policy the clerical educationists are in
perfect agreement. They rarely make definite statements which can
be challenged and confuted; but they assert, more or less in the
language of innuendo, that secular education, wherever it has been
adopted, has proved itself morally mischievous. This is probably
but a form of the ancient clerical assumption that all persons who
differ from the guardians of the orthodox faith are extremely wicked.
An assumption of that kind has to be more delicately worked now
than it was in former times, when differing from the established
form was too dangerous to be popular. Accordingly we find that
Dr. Inge discreetly drops it altogether. Dr. Sadler handles it very
gingerly. He refers to the “secular solution” as having been
adopted in other parts of the English-speaking world “ not with
auspicious results.” Mr. Shakespeare dogmatises on this matter out
of a full heart, but with a sad lack of knowledge. “ We know,” he
says, “ that in other lands where secular education prevails the
results are deplorable.”
What lands? He does not state. He
rather suggests Australia. “ Australian writers,” he says, “ tell us
of populations growing up without any sense of moral responsibility.”
What writers ? Again he does not state. He is apparently under
the impression that secular education obtains throughout the
Australian continent. Secular education does exist in Victoria;
denominational religious instruction exists in New South Wales, and
undenominational religious instruction in Western Australia; yet
Victoria, according to the official statistics, has far less crime than
New South Wales or Western Australia. Secular education exists
also in New Zealand, and what is the result there ? Sir Robert
Stout, Chief Justice of New Zealand, being in England in 1909 and
interviewed by a Daily News representative on the matter of the
charges made against the morals of his people because of the absence
of religious instruction in the schools, indignantly declared that such
charges were “ false, absolutely false.”
General education of a
purely secular character has obtained in New Zealand for thirty-three
years ; it has worked well, and no serious attempt has been made
to undo it. “ Our teachers inculcate order, obedience, respect for
others,” Sir Robert Stout said, “and the best proof of their success
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THE POLICY OF SECULAR EDUCATION
is seen (1) in the diminishing of serious crime, and (2) in the fact
that those trained free from sectarian bias produce only half as many
criminals in proportion to their number as those trained in the
denominational schools.” Sir Robert Stout was unkind enough to
express an unwelcome truth to his interviewer.
“ I see more
practical heathendom in London in one day,” he said, “ than I should
in a New Zealand back block in a year.” So much for the British
Colonies at the Antipodes. Japan and France not being openly
referred to, there is no call to challenge Mr. Shakespeare’s slander on
their behalf. Too much attention, perhaps, has already been paid
to the unsupported assertion of one who sneers at the idea of “a
foundation for morality on rational grounds,” and goes to the length
of saying that ethics divorced from religion are of no value, and
may even be a public danger.” He evidently thinks that there are
many moralities and only one religion. Not so do philosophers
reason. Ruskin taught (in the splendid second chapter of Lectures
on Art) that “there are many religions, but there is only one
morality ”—and that this morality which is natural to all civilised
men, so far from being founded on religion, receives from it “neither
law nor peace, but only hope and felicity.” Moreover, if Mr.
Shakespeare will take the trouble to think it out, he will probably
see that the policy of secular education does not “ divorce ethics
from religion,” but simply separates them in the national schools,
leaving them united in their own sphere—that of the churches,
Sunday-schools, and homes.
The very best things may be
unwelcome when they are out of place, and what can be more out of
place than one man’s religion in a school against the wishes of
another man who is equally compelled to contribute to its main
tenance ?
Having disposed of the two clerical objections to secular educa
tion, we pause to observe two things which the clerical objectorsusually overlook. In the first place, the working-class leaders, who
really value education as the best friend of their order, are anxious
to see the religious quarrel in the schoolroom ended. They know
that it stands in the way of the educational improvement they desire.
It is quite beyond question that the religious quarrel has been a
serious hindrance to the development of national education.
England will never take her proper place in the van of educational
progress until the State leaves religion in the hands of those who
care for it, and organises education on a scientific and civic basis.
The labour leaders see this quite clearly; they are prompted by
�THE POLICY OF SECULAR EDUCATION
11
interest as well as by principle in their support of secular education.
In the second place, the triumph of secular education is certain,
apart altogether from its justice. No other solution of the religious
difficulty is possible. Ecclesiastical quarrels end when public interest
in them ceases, or when there is only one side left in consequence of
the most powerful sect having destroyed or swallowed its rivals.
Such a conclusion is inconceivable in England. There is no one
Church powerful enough to end this controversy. The rivalry has
continued ever since the Education Act of 1870 ; it has grown more
bitter every year, and the relative strength of the Churches remains
practically unchanged.
It was that rivalry, even more than the
formal vote of the House of Lords, that kilLed Mr. Birrell s Education
Bill; and it was owing to that rivalry that the Bills of Mr. McKenna
and Mr. Runciman were still-born. And as the bitter rivalry shows
no signs of ceasing or even abating, and as the Government has
learnt already, through three futile Education Bills, what this really
means in practice—and the English public have learnt it too it is
hardly probable that any fresh effort will be made by the Govern
ment to carry a Religious Education Bill in the midst of sectarian
contentions, with the certainty of gaining more hatred from those it
displeases than gratitude from those it only half satisfies. Some day
or other—and sooner, as Dr. Inge and Dr. Sadler perceive, rathei
than later—the Government will be driven into introducing a Secular
Education Bill (though probably not under that name) as the only
way out of an intolerable situation.
Hope, however, springs eternal in the human breast. A few
ladies and a number of gentlemen, a majority of them ministers of
religion, and drawn mainly from two sections of the English
Protestant community, have constituted themselves a self-appointed
and non-representative body under the name of The Educational
Settlement Committee,” and have published their proposals in a
shilling pamphlet entitled Towards Educational Peace. They go to
work with great seriousness, but in the light of the three educational
fiascos of the Liberal Government their effort is quite comical.
They propose everything that has already failed, and add a few
reactionary or impossible suggestions of their own. It was this
plan of salvation that the Rev. Professor Inge advocated in his
article in this Review.1
Under this precious plan peace is to be secured by one party
1 Nineteenth Century and After, September, 1910.
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THE POLICY OF SECULAR EDUCATION
lying quietly down with the other party inside. The chief recom
mendation of the Committee is the perpetuation and extension of the
endowment of religious teaching under the Cowper-Temple Clause.
Religion is to be paid for out of public funds, taught by public
servants, and organised by public machinery. Cowper-Templeism,
however, is opposed to the convictions of millions of Englishmen,
who will not submit either to pay for it or to have it forced upon
their children. The effect of this proposal, if adopted, would be to
intensify the present bitterness and strife, especially as the provision
of religious instruction is left in effect in the hands of every local
education authority. The battle would be transferred from the
school to the county and borough council chambers, and civic
administration and reform would suffer in the strife and confusion
that would inevitably arise. A new establishment of religion under
county and municipal control would be created, and the religious
opinions of candidates, rather than their fitness as administrators of
local affairs, would be the point upon which elections would be fought.
The Committee for Educational Peace propose to leave the Jews
and Catholics with their present privileges untouched. They know
what it would cost the Liberal party to attempt to force the
Catholics into a common general plan of religious education, and
they quietly let discretion stand, in this instance, as the better part
of valour. But all the rest of the nation is to be included.
There is to be ‘respect for all forms of conscientious belief,” but
this new development of Cowper-Templeism is to rule the roost. It
is, indeed, to become the official religion of the nation. And the
teaching of it is to become compulsory. At the present time the
school authorities may confine themselves to secular teaching, as
some of the old School Boards actually did, but this option would
be abolished. The only choice given them under the Committee’s
plan is the provision of Cowper-Temple teaching, or the opening of
their doors to the expert teacher from officially approved denomina
tions. Moreover, the Committee would seek to impose upon the
children an injustice, against which Mr. Birrell expressly provided
m allowing those who took advantage of the Conscience Clause to
absent themselves from school during the time of religious teaching.
This right the Committee would deny. They insist that the child
shall either be present at some religious lessons given by an expert
or be placed in an invidious position before his schoolfellows. The
practical effect of this proposal is to nullify the Conscience Clause.
Every injustice under which the teacher at present suffers the
�THE POLICY OF SECULAR EDUCATION
13
Committee would continue, if not actually increase. Unless he can
satisfy a sectarian committee that he has definite religious convic
tions of the exact colour desired, he is to be denied the right to earn
his living in a large number of State-supported schools. On the
other hand, while a head teacher is to be forbidden to give denomina
tional teaching in which he may possibly believe, he is even
encouraged to give Cowper-Temple teaching, in which he may not
believe. Professor Inge asserts that there are many Agnostics
among otherwise well-qualified elementary teachers.” In both cases
the Committee’s conditions place a premium upon insincerity, which,
to say the least, is an unfortunate outcome of the latest device for
religious teaching. The concession that, on request, a teacher may
be excused from giving religious teaching is futile. No teacher could
make such a request without jeopardising his professional career.
He would be pointed at by the children, ostracised by his colleagues,
and marked by the authorities. He would practically be compelled
either to give religious teaching or sacrifice his career in the profes
sion he had chosen, and for which he had been specially trained.
The Committee treat the parents with as little consideration as
they show to the teachers and the children. To exercise the choice
of school which is, under certain circumstances, given to them would,
in hundreds of villages, endanger their very livelihood.
It would have been very interesting if the Committee had
prepared a specimen syllabus of the religious teaching they propose.
They were wise enough to avoid this pitfail. They know the
advantage of indefiniteness. Consequently they use vague language
about 11 instruction in the Bible and in the principles of the Christian
religion.” Professor Inge puts it as “ instruction in the suitable
parts of the Bible.” Dr. Sadler overlooked that important qualifica
tion. Mr. Shakespeare’s view of the Bible as “ the book of humanity”
—the treasure of the race, the birthright of every English child, the
safeguard and condition of both civil and religious liberty—is entirely
beside the point. Mr. Shakespeare is not a discreet controversialist.
It is not about the children of religious parents who go to church
and Sunday-school that he and his colleagues are troubled, “it is
with the children of the irreligious,” he says, that we are chiefly
concerned.” The object is to snatch them from parental influence
and proselytise them into Cowper-Templeists. But how foolish to
avow it in this incautious manner.
What do the Committee mean by the principles of the Christian
religion ? Have they ever been stated ? Can they ever be stated in
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THE POLICY OF SECULAR EDUCATION
a way to command the endorsement even of the Christian Churches
themselves. What is it but the principles (or dogmas) of the
Christian religion that all the Christian Churches are divided over ?
Is it not a poor compliment to suggest that they are divided over
anything else ?
And while they are thus divided is it not an
impertinence for one section of Christians, or a combination of
sections probably not a half in point of numbers, to pose, not only
before the populace but before the State, as custodians of the only
true religion ? And is it not farcical when everyone knows that they
dare not formulate their conviction of what is a common Christianity
for fear of falling into irretrievable disunion ?
The same criticism applies to the Bible. The religious, ethical,
or literary value of the Book is not the point at issue. However
high the position assigned to it, in its entirety it is not a proper text
book for elementary schools. Children are curious, and ask incon
venient questions. Moreover, when one asks what is the Bible, as
one asked what are the principles of the Christian religion, it is easy
enough to point to the Book, but that is not an answer to the
question. The late Rev. Dr. Parker, in a letter to the Times of
October 11, 1894, advocating secular education, uttered a grave
'warning to his fellow Nonconformists on this matter:—■
The present condition of Biblical criticism brings its own difficulties into
this controversy. We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that there is no Bible
upon which all Christian parties are agreed. One party says that surely the
historical parts of the Bible might be read, to which another party replies
that the historical parts of the Bible are especially to be avoided, because they
are critically incorrect, and in many instances glaringly contradictory. One
party says, “ Read the Bible because of its Divine revelations to the human
soul to which another party replies, “ The one thing that is to be distrusted
is the claim on behalf of the supernatural or the ultra-historical.” Some say
“ Read the life of Jesus and others say that there is no trustworthy life of
Jesus to be obtained. To some the Bible is historical; to others it is ideal.
Which Bible, then, or which view of the Bible, is to be recognised in schools
sustained by the compulsory contributions of all classes of the community ?
Dr. Parker’s warning in the name of Biblical criticism is certainly
not less valid than it was seventeen years ago. He was not
answered at the time, he has not been answered since. The sup
porters of State-propagated religion still speak of “ simple Bible
teaching” as if it were really a simple plan of religious instruction.
Widely different views and valuations of the Bible are now enter
tained by scholars and preachers within the Churches themselves;
and all sorts of religious ideas, from orthodoxy to complete
scepticism, are held by thousands of elementary school teachers.
The Book itself is the subject of fierce controversy even among
�THE POLICY OE SECULAR EDUCATION
J-
I
15
Christians, and its interpretation by the teachers is bound to be as
various as their own religious convictions. Undogmatic teaching of
the Bible is, therefore, an utter impossibility. While school teachers
are human beings affected by the mental, moral, and religious agita
tions of the age in which they live, with the Bible in their hand as
an authoritative text-book they must impart to their scholars the
colour of their own faith. There are not a few ministers of religion
connected with the Secular Education League who recognise that,
in relation to national education, Christianity itself is necessarily
sectarianism. They do not wish it to be dealt out to the children in
State doses, and they revolt at the idea of its being dispensed in that
way at the cost of citizens who may be strongly opposed to it.
They hold that it is a mean thing and derogatory to true religion to
drive children to the public schools and endeavour to make them
Christians by the force of authority. As Christian leaders they want
no more than fair play. They have written two tracts for the
Secular Education League—An Appeal by Churchmen to Churchmen
and An Appeal by Nonconformists to Nonconformists—which are
marked by ability and candour.
Somehow or other, and yet it is not altogether strange, it is to
the non-established Churches that we must always turn at the end
of this discussion. Sir Robert Stout uttered memorable words to
his interviewer when he said : The attitude of your Nonconformists
and Liberals in England amazes me. They seek to disestablish a
Church, and yet seek to maintain the State school as the Children’s
Church.” It is not unnatural that a State Church should endeavour
to carry its religious teaching into the State schools. Professor
Inge hails the Anglican schools as “ little citadels of the Established
Church.” But where is the justice or the consistency of those who
are opposed on principle to all Established Churches who seek to
turn all the Council schools of England into State-established
citadels of their religion ? That is what they are doing. They deny
that it is specific Nonconformist religious teaching that is given in
the Council schools, but they cannot deny that it is the religious
teaching that is acceptable to and supported by the non-established
Churches—which, in the circumstances, is practically the same
thing. The fact is that the bulk of the Free Churches went wrong
in 1870. Leading ministers like Drs. Dale and Guinness Rogers,
and leading laymen like Mr. Henry Richard and Mr. Illingworth,
with a substantial following, tried to keep them in the right path,
and failed.
The essential principle for which they stood was
�16
THE POLICY OF SECULAR EDUCATION
betrayed. Those who cried for “ a Free Church in a Free State”
did not realise that the same principle demanded a Free School in a
Free State. Happily many of them have learned the lesson of forty
years strife ; they see the mistake that was made, and desire to undo
it. Happily, too, they are a growing number. And the return of
the non-established Churches to their foundation principle and their
old traditions would achieve a speedy victory for secular education.
THE SECULAR EDUCATION LEAGUE.
President: HALLEY STEWART, Esq.,
j.p.
SECRETARY: H. SNELL, 19 Buckingham Street, London, W.C.
The SECULAR EDUCATION LEAGUE aims at binding together in one effective
organisation all who favour the “Secular Solution” of the Education problem,
without reference to any other convictions—political, social, or religious—that
they may entertain.
Those who desire to see the religious difficulty in national education settled
in the only just and satisfactory way are invited to join the League. The
minimum subscription is One Shilling.
Copies of this Pamphlet for distribution will be supplied on liberal terms on applica
tion to the Secretary.
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE SECULAR- EDUCATION LEAGUE,
19 BUCKINGHAM STREET, STRAND, W.C.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The policy of secular education
Creator
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Stewart, Halley
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. Reprinted from 'The nineteenth century and after' April 1911. Stamp inside front cover: Bishopsgate Institute Reference Library, 1 Feb 1998. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Secular Education League
Date
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1911
Identifier
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N626
Subject
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Secularism
Education
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The policy of secular education), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Education
Education-England-History
NSS
Secular
Secularism-Great Britain