CHURCH v. CHAPEL,

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 147, 22 June 1906, Page 4

CHURCH v. CHAPEL,

The carrying of Sir Henry CampbellBannerman's resolution for applying the closure to tho debate on the Education Bill after fourteen more days in Committee and three days for the report and the third reading brings tho measure appreciably nearer to its goal in the House of Commons ; but simultaneously with this announcement comes the news that while Ministers are making satisfactory progress against the onemy in their front, thoy are threatened the rear by a very awkward movement on the part of some of the most zealous of their own supporters. A few days ago Dr. Clifford was •reported as saying that "ho would rather pass the Education Bill with its objectionable clause 4 than risk a general election and a possible change in tho Government" ; out he now says that whether the Bill Is passed or not, he and his friends will drop the Government if the Government does not drop this clause. Such is practically the effect of the statement reported on Wednesday as having been made by him as a member of the deputation which waited upon Mr. Birrell from the National Council of Evangelical Churches : — "Dr. Clifford remarked that if the clause was not withdrawn, the Government would be unable to rely upon the continued support of the Nonconformists" ; and apparently it was some members of the same deputation who threatened to revert to passive resistance if the clause was< persisted in. Mr. BirrelFs reply was of a non-committal character, but "he admitted the unpopularity of clause 4, and promised to consult the oEher member* of the Cabinet." This clause, as wo mentioned yesterday, empowers the local authority in any urban area to allow "extended facilities" for denominational teaching in any voluntary school which they take over if satisfied that the parents of at least fourfifths of the children attending the school desire it. The object of the clause was peace, but it has suffered the not uncommon fate of tho would-be peacemaker in a heated quarrel ; its good intentions have not saved it from an impartial hammering by both sides. It must be remembered, however, that the assaults of contending extremists by no means prove that the compromiso which it proposes does not commend itself to the common sense of a com-promise-loving country. Even the Spectator, which is one of the few authorities able to combine an intense interest in the subject with a calm and judicial temper, considers that the clause proceeds upon a wrong, method. 'We warmly approve of the liberty given tp the education authorities to afford the extended facilities," it says, "but we dislike the mechanical tost of four-fifths, and the consequent counting of heads and beating up of parents to declare that they desire extended facilities. We would far rather enact that when tho local education authority were convinced that to give a school in a particular district extended facilities would bo just to the people of the denomination concerned, and would inflict no injury on tho minority, owing to the accommodation available elsewhere, .they should be empowered to do so without any actual counting of he *»• . There could, in addition, be a ri«ht of assent or veto placed in the hands of the Education Office." This last proposal is on the lines of one already assented to by Mr. Birrell, viz., that the Board of Education bhall review the refusal of any local authority to take over a voluntary school ; but the only amendment to clause 4 of which the cable has «o far informed us seeks to make the wishes of the parents absolutely bindinc upon the local authority in the matter of extended facilities. The fundamental objection to entrusting the local authority with any discretion in v. ™ mi £ te « I 8I 8 J^ fowlMy stated by Mr. D. C. Lethbury in the Nineteenth century symposium to which we referred yesterday. "The extension of local option to th fli religious difficulty" will not, in his opinion, tend to tho promotion of peace. "There will," he says, "be the material for a very pretty quarrel at the next, and at every succeeding, municipal election. If clause 4istobe of any v^lue to the schools to which it relates, and if it is to be anything else than a fiery cross to the districts to which it is proposed to apply it, its action must be automatic wherever the statutory conditions are satisfied. The Board of Edu- | cation must girve the facilities asked for when it hag satisfied itself that the Parents of four-fitths of the children attending the school desire them. . . Whether the whole strength of the Cabinet if exerted to the utmost could carry such an amendment is another question." Instead of attempting to make the clause more drostio the Cabinet is now considering whether it should not be dropped altogether. Mr. Lethbury's article is not the> least interesting and valuable of the »ix | which appear in the May Nineteenth Century. •• For and Against tho Education Bill ; and, knowing him to have been for many years the editor of thegroat Anglican organ, the Guardian, wo oxpeotod lo find in his article a forcible exposition of the views of the less extreme members of that communion. He states, however, that tho abolition of separate denominational schools, which is to many phurcbraen the worst fault in the Bill*. is*- not .to him-a-mattw tor re*.

gret, and one of his reasons is very instructive. " There are," ho _ says, " nearly as many children belonging to the Church in provided schools as there are in Church schools ; and into these provided schools the clergy as a body have made no attempt to gain an entrance. They have set a high value on the exclusive possession of their own schools, and rather than risk this they have* left provided schools in the exclusive possession of the Undenominationaliets-. Thus, in Mr. Lethbury's view, the Church would not retain the education of its children even if it succeeded in the present struggle to retain its schools ; and while regarding tho facilities offered by tho Bill for denominational teaching as " worthless in themBelves and insulting in the way in which they are offered," he thinks that the abolition of the dual system proposed by the first clause of tho Bill is in evitable. The plan of "universal facilities," i.e., facilities for all kinds of religious teaching, in the schools after they, have come under public control, was at one time urged by him "in season and out of season," but at the very close of his article he makes a remarkable explanation of why he has abandoned it : — "The reason is simply that I have become a convert Eo the secularisation of schools. 'How that has come about is I too long to be set out at the end of an article. I will only say that, however much Churchmen may dislike the secular solution, their success in resisting the present Bill will depend upon their willingness to accept that solution in preference to the undenominational solution. . . . The question which the progress of the Bill will really determine is whether Churchmen or Nonconformists are most afraid of secular schools." The deplorable feud between church and chapel will work out a good result at last if it wrecks the present jßill nnd drives a majority of the people of England to the conclusion arrived at by so staunch a Churchman as -Mr. D, C. Lethbury.