PRIMARY EDUCATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 1158, 7 February 1874, Page 1

PRIMARY EDUCATION.

I. The subject of primary education has lately become one of the most vital questions of the day. In the old country the opposing forces are being' marshalled in various camps for a close and lively struggle ; and, though the surrounding circumstances are different from those which exist among ourselves and the British Colonies generally, yet we may learn much from a careful examination of what is being done in England. There the education of the masses has been chiefly conducted through the instrumentality of the Established Church, and in consequence vested rights have been created which cannot be ignored ; while here, such has not been the case, and we may therefore freely search for first principles, and, finding, act upon them. Whatever may be our opinions or our prejudices, we may learn, if we will, a lesion of charity and forbearance from ascertaining and duly weighing the arguments and motives of those who differ from us ; and being ourselves far removed from the influences arising from prior occupation of the education field, and from the bitterness of political partisanship, the investigation may not be without its use in forming our judgments. The Nonconformist side of the argument has been ably handled by Mr Morlev in the Fortnightly Review, under the title of the "Struggle for National Education," and to this we shall at present refer — submitting, as we can gather, so far, some of the chief arguments that have lately been adduced on the opposite side. The war note having been sounded, has been taken up by Mr Bright on resuming his seat in the Government, and, consequently, from the camp of the Church of England especially, come unmistakeable indication that the Act of 1870 shall not be disturbed in any of its vital principles, especially those regarding aid to voluntary or denominational schools. Not only is the battle to be fought in Parliament, but already the skirmishing has commenced in the election of members for the Local Boards. There is an all prevailing activity, and a glowing earnestness both in attack and defence. Mr Morley appeals to history to support his assertion, that for three centuries of the existence of the State Church, it has "stimulated and encouraged the coarse, intolerant, and obstructive political impulses of the nation ;" and that, with some honourable exceptions, of whom all parties are proud, " the political history of our Episcopal Establishment, alike in England, in Scotland, and in Ireland, has been one long and unvarying course of resolute enmity to justice, enlightenment, and freedom ;" while Dissent, he Bays, " possesses a heroic political creed," though it may savour somewhat of the sourness engendered from being the object of the Five Mile Acts, Conventicle Acts, Test Acts, and Schism Acts. These are grave charges which we leave to the student of history to decide on for himself. The statement, however, is of use to us, as showing the feelings of at least one side in the dispute between the contending parties, Mr JMoeI/BY complains that by the Education Act of 1870, the Govern- j inent, which wa« raised to power by the active co-operatfcoa of liberal Nonconformists, in order to organize a national system of education, handed over the elementary education of the j people to the Anglican Church, which i he terms merely a " group of sects," by i making School Boards permissive, and by encouraging, by enormous subsidies, j the sectarian schools in opposition to the Boards' schools, and, by leaving the training schools for teachers mainly in j the hands of the State Churoh. He adduces in support of his allegation thiß important faot, that the Churoh of England received in the year ending $let March, 187 J, "wreatyMtott per

cent, of the total sum provided by the State for the primary education of children," and that the system termed voluntary or denominational had received ten millions sterling from Parliamentary grants between 1839 and 1868, of which, six and a half millions were paid to the Chui-ch. schools, so that, and by the increase of the annual grants under the revised code, a fairly managed Church school may become almost self-supporting 1 . The charges which Mr Morley brings against the voluntary or denominational schools are, that the secular education is bad and insufficient, the teachers ill-educated, the managers indifferent to the quality of the teaching so long as the number of scholars increase : the inadequacy of the voluntary part of the funds, and the smallness of the schools. While Mr AJorley pays a warm and just tribute to the efforts and sacrifices of the clergy in general, he contends that "the instruction which is given in the denominational schools bas been almost worthless," and in illustration of this assertion he states that two-thirds of the children over ten came from this magnificent training unable to read the Bible with satisfaction to themselves, unable to pen the simplest letter, and unable to do anything but the most elementary kind of arithmetical sum." This occurred in 186G-67, while in 1869-70 the result is stated to be worse, justifying what was said by Dr Lyon Playfair : " What we call education in the Inspected Schools of England is the mere seed used in other countries ; but with us that seed, as soon as it has sprouted, withers and dries up, and never grows into a crop for the feeding of the nation." Mr Morley declares that in the conservative county of Lancaster, where the clergy are powerful, "no less than forty per cent, of the mai*ried women in 1870, could not sign then* names,, and had to make their marks in the register ; and in York-

shire, where the ratepayers were polled for and against a School Board, the voting papers showed that thirty-seven of the supporters of the denominational system signed their names with a mark;" "of the opponents, who were in a decisive minority, only seven per cent, were compelled to resort to this device; while in another district, out of 194 opponents of a School Board, one hundred and twenty signed with a mark."

Of the Training Schools for teachers, and of the results of their teaching, and of the schools generally, Mr Mobley speaks in most disparaging terms, asserting that " the teachers are perfecting themselves in religious thoughtfulness at the cost of arithmetical, grammatical, and geographical thoughttulness ;" and he adduces, besides other proofs, advertisements in support ot this — such as the constant requirements of a teacher being that he must be a" Churchman," " earnest and moderate," " sound and active," of " thorough Evangelical principles." Sometimes, as he asserts, it is required as a condition that the teacher must act as a choir-master, as organist, as parish clerk, attend a Sunday School, or do secretary's work. In one instance the teacher is required "to act as clerk and sexton ; harmonium, singing, and sewing required ; house and £50, and two-thirds of the Govex-nment grant ;" in another, "to live in a parsonage, and take charge of and teach a little boy." In fact, the teacher loses his independence and selfresppct, and, as the Vicar of Dudley said of a teacher, emphasising the situation : " I will not allow him to insult me openly, without letting him know that our relative positions ape those of master and servant." Mr Mo r ley quotes the monthly paper of the National Society for August, 1872, as saying :—": — " In the present condition of ! Churoh schools, it is more than ever necessary that they should be made the nurseries of Church principles, Thin

I last is the object at which W6 ought uniformly to aim — the training of the young Christian for full communion with the Church, and as a preliminary to that, a training for Confirmation. The whole school time of a child should lead tip to this." Of both teachers and scholars he emphatically asserts that they are far behind the same classes in Prussia and Scotland.

ii. It is said by the Nonconformists that by the great assistance given to denominational schools, and by the establishment of School Boards being only permissive and not compulsory, the clergy of the Church of England possess the real and sole control over the Church schools, receiving half a million a year from the taxes, and that sum being likely to increase to three-quarters, besides what they receive from rates, building grants, and for church training schools, thus effectually converting these schools into sectarian schools at the expense of the State. Mr Morley proceeds to show that, in most instances, the denominational schools, whether Church of England, Roman Catholic, or Nonconformist, ai*e not entitled to be called voluntary schools. Quoting from a Parliamentary paper for 1870-71, he shows that in one Manchester school £1G was the voluntary contribution in an income of <£GlO, in another £5 in .£356, in a third £5G in £891, and in a fourth £1 in £458. Anticipating the argument that nonconformists or non-sectarians might act likewise, Mr Morley observes that nonconformists are less wealthy than churchmen, that they have had to pay for their own places of worship, and ministers, and not seldom have been refused permission to obtain building sites for their chapels. Thus the weakest, and not the strongest, are heavily handicapped, and then invited to go in and win.

If education is to be compulsory, it is argued as above all things necessary that the establishment of School Boards should be so also, involving, as it does, the participation of the laity in the school management, and the disuse of denominational formularies. Tt is argued to be idle to attempt to prove that the enormous endowment of sectarian schools is not a disguised system of concurrent endowment, conferring almost a monopoly in favour of that body which Mr Morley terms a " loose bundle of discordant sects, who are constituted into one Catholic and Apostolic Church by the Erastian bonds of an Acfc of Parliament." He is very severe on that compact body, which, composed of High, Broad, and Low Church men, fight fiercely against each other, but close their ranks and offer a united front against those who seek to make education free, and religious teaching a common right and a common duty. In his anger he declares that the Church of England is not, as it is sometimes called, a democratic institution, and adduces in support of this assertion, that, in a periodical called the Labourers' Union Chronicle, " the labourers themselves tell us every week how keenly they are alive to the angry enmity of the clergy, and how eternally they will resent it." We cannot reproduce more of this class of railing, which seems essential to Mr Morley's argument, for those who are acquainted with the blessings which emanate from many a| country reotory and curacy can best tell how in many — very many — cases, the clergy and their families are ministering angels, ministering to all alike, and often, too, out of their very poverty, Nor do we think Mr Motley would deny this, though hesays that " the Anglioan clergy as a body " have shown themselves v to be without faith in intelligence, and ample hope of sooial improvement," <( identifying all their aspirations and all their efforts wibh the extension and, confirmation of Bfict»r^» nuprewsKjy," and thereto?! are

I unfit to be the efficient instruments in ! educating the rising generation. But we pass on to Mr Morley's opinion of the religious difficulty. He states the views of his opponents to be that the nation is hostile to the exclusion of religious teachingfrom schools. That to force such exclusion, especially in the education of children, would be impolitic, and that to set up a secular school system would be doing the utmost violence to the religious conscience of the objecting parents. With a passing allusion to these scruples, coming from those " who, for half-a-century forced the children of Dissenters to come to services and Sunday School instruction which their parents abhorred, or else refused to admit them to the only secular instruction that was within their reach," he argues that, along with the right of choosing religious, instruction, goes the duty of paying for it; that by the aided denominational system, every man pays for the religion of everybody else ; that it is slovenly to urge that the Disseuter may retaliate in his schools ; because, even if he so desired, he is in a minority everywhere except in Wales, and that in Wales it would be a poor satisfaction to make Church people pay for what they hate

Then, again, in reply to the argument that the consciences of ratepayers ' 'revolt against any system of education of winch religion is not a part," Mr Morley argues that it is against the principles of religious liberty to force the conscience of the minority, as tithes were wrung from the Catholic cottiers of Ireland, a minority of the nation, though a local majority of seven or eight to one ; or, as Church rates were wrung from dissenting minorities. If the conscience of the majority is to be respected, so equally must that of the minority be.

Proceeding onwards, Mr Morley reviews the argument that the State " does not pay for the religious teaching, but only for the secular," and asserts that, "in subsidising the denominational system, the Government subsidise ail the incidents of the system, denominational teaching included," and, in the case of the Manchester school before noticed, he asks did the one pound sterling, the total amount of voluntary donations, " exactly suffice to pay for the religious instruction?" Government, according to Mr Gladstone, " holds itself entirely and absolutely detached from all responsibility with regard to religious teaching;" its payments, in theory, are strictly confined to proficiency in. secular knowledge. Mr Morlby then observes that as religious teaching is positively forbidden except at the beginning or ending of the work of the school, the term " godless," applied freely to unsectarian schools, may, if rightly so applied, be equally applicable to five - sixths of the school times of sectarian schools, and in the case of those availing themselves of the conscience clause, to the whole of the education thereingiven ; and he points out the incompatibility of this jmictico ]c ( j e . | duration of the organ of the National I Society, that " the whole of the school time of a child should lead up to making the child a communicant of the ! Church of England." It is not within i our scope to refer to what is mid about the practical ovasioivs of the conscience [clause, nor to allude- to the language used with regard to. them,. With reference to the eagerness of indigent parents to choose their own denominational schools, the Key. Mf Waugh, one woll acquainted with the Greenwich division of the London Board district, embracing a population of 200,000 persons, says, " that not it* one single case has a denominational school been preferred, fbr any other than physical ov geographical reasons. * " Where <v family consisted of boys and! ffirK and the locality provided schools 1 far boj-B uniey &q Bowd* *b4 fw girity

under the Church, or vice versa, one half of the family attended Board schools and the other half Church schools."

What possible objection can there be, Mr Mobley asks, to taking the religious instruction from the secular teacher, and to empowering "the clergyman, or priest, or some one deputed by him, other than the schoolmaster or schoolmistress, to give religious instruction at a distinct time, just as it is nowgiven at a distinct time?" Each is thus remitted to his proper duty, to which he can- devote his whole time ; and the teacher, beyond this, preserves his professional independence and selfrespect. Canon Norris, who is friendly to the opposite side, says of the result of the Examination of Candidates for admission into the Training Colleges, "Of these, four-fifths were pupil teachers. I have the papers of the 217 who failed last Christmas before me ; there is not one of them that would not be considered disgraceful by a panel of a dozen teachers or clergymen. Two-thirds of the pupil teachers failed to obtain half-marks." " Long before the passing of the Act of 1870," says the Principal of the Battersea Training College, "it was notorious that after years of instruction in the Bible and catechism, large numbers of children lapsed into dissent or utter godlessness,"