GOD OR NO-GOD IN THE SCHOOLS?

New Zealand Tablet, 24 August 1911, Page 1617

GOD OR NO-GOD IN THE SCHOOLS?

THE DISCUSSION : A CRITICAL SUMMARY By The Rx. Rev. Henry W. Cleary, D.D. PART 111. ‘THOSE THAT FLY MAY FIGHT AGAIN.’ lI.—THE ‘EVENING POST’S ’ • D2FENCE ’ OF THE SECULAR SYSTEM (Continued from last issue.) MISQUOTATIONS AND MISREPRESENTATIONS. Three noted Englishmen were quoted by the Evening Post (without any reference) as authorities,’ who (it alleged) stood with it for the utter exclusion of religion from the school processes of education. These authorities ’ were the noted English Protestants, Mr. Gladstone (twice quoted), Archbishop Temple, and Dr. Parker. For its own case, the Post could hardly have selected - worse allies than these three dead and gone Britons. Its four ‘ quotations ’ are, one and all, grave misrepresentations. And the three ‘ authorities,’ whom it called to' curse State-aided religious education, remained to bless. A brief exposition of the views of Archbishop Temple, and further and fuller references to the opinions of Mr. Gladstone and Dr. Parker, will, perhaps, be of interest to the reader. In the first place, these additional references will exhibit the real opinions of these men more fully than was possible in a newspaper discussion. And, in the second place, the grave and persistent misrepresentation of their plain words will afford melancholy evidence of the culpable carelessness of assertion and quotation into which otherwise reputable journals may fall under the desperate stress of a discussion on so straightforward a theme as religious education. I. Gladstone Misquoted. Mr, Gladstone was both misquoted and misinterpreted by the Evening Post. ■ 1. Mr Gladstone was first misquoted by the Post in its issue of March 16. That really serious case of garbling and misrepresentation was amply and clearly exposed in the letter which appears on pages 32-33 of this publication. There it was clearly shown that by supplying the vital words suppressed by the Post, Gladstone was really advocating just what Catholics in Australia and New Zealand have been steadily demanding ever since the introduction of the purely secular system. That cogent and damaging exposure has not, as to any one of its details, been met and refuted by the Evening Post. There was really no excuse for this literary sin of garbling; for the quotation is properly given by Professor Mackenzie on p. 7 of what the Post calls his ‘ valuable pamphlet ’ in defence of the ‘ secular solution.’ But, for all his enthusiasm for loose assertion, the Professor had at least the saving grace to refrain from directly making the great Liberal leader appear in the role of a champion of the outright exclusion of religion , by law, from the school-training of the young. That piej&e of controversial daring was reserved for the Evening Post. 2. The second misrepresentation of Mr. Gladstone’s words appears on page 38 of the present publication. The light of day was let in upon it on pp. 44-45. The reader will get more speedily to the heart of this matter by a perusal of . the quotations hereunder : Gladstone’s Words. ‘Why not adopt frankly the principle that the State or the local community should provide the secular teaching, and either leave the option to the ratepayers to go beyond this sine qua non, if they think fit, within the limits of the conscience clause, or else simply leave the parties themselves to find Bible and other religious education from voluntary sources?’ '•

The Post’s Interpretation.

‘Why not adopt frankly the principle that the State or the local community should provide the secular teaching, and either leave the option to the ratepayers to go beyond this sine qua non, if they think fit, within the limits of the conscience clause, or else simply, leave the parties themselves to find Bible and other religious education from voluntary sources V — hut on no account should the ‘ Bible and other religious education from voluntary sources’ be imparted during school hours!

(a) In its previous quotation from Gladstone, the Post perpetrated the serious literary misdemeanor of garbling by suppression. In the quotation here under consideration, it fell into a hardly less grievous folly—suggestive of equivalent interpolation—namely, by adding, in its own words, an. interpretation which is in no sense warranted by the text of Gladstone’s letter. (1) It is sufficiently obvious, even at the first glance, that Gladstone is, throughout this extract, dealing with a scheme of education of which religion shall form a part. (2) In the very chapter from which the Evening Post professed to quote, so strong a friend of religious education as Cardinal (then Archbishop) Manning urged upon Gladstone this ‘ second alternative ’ — leave the parties themselves to find Bible and other religious education from voluntary sources. So, in effect, did Nonconformist friends of religious education. (3) And, surely, so wide-awake and leading a daily paper as the Wellington Post might be reasonably expected to be acquainted with the notorious fact that Catholics in Australia and New Zealand have been for over thirty years advocating State-aid for the secular instruction given in their schools, coupled in every case with this proviso; Catholics themselves ‘to find Bible and other religious education from voluntary sources.’ Moreover, (3) a journal which sets up as an expert in matters educational ought to know that in Ireland, Holland, and various other countries, the State ‘leaves the parties to find Bible and other religious education from voluntary sources.’ There is, therefore, nothing whatever in Gladstone’s quoted words —either in themselves or in their circumstances—to justify the Post in declaring that the great Liberal leader advocated ‘ exactly ’ that policy of rigid exclusion of religion from the schools which was adopted by the New Zealand Parliament in 1877. Despite his proneness to risky and sweeping assertion. Professor Mackenzie did not go so far as to claim directly that any of these words of Gladstone (which he quotes on p. 7) ‘square exactly with the policy which New Zealand adopted in the Education Act of 1877.’

(b) Moreover: The utter exclusion of religion from the schools was not, at the time, a live issue, or within the bounds of practical politics. The tentative suggestion—the ‘ second alternative ’ — Gladstone’s letter to Lord de Grey was not embodied or accepted by him as a part of his Education Bill. That Bill, in all its stages and phases, provided for religion as a regular part of the school curriculum. The strongest opponents of the Bill (the Nonconformists) did not, as a body, oppose some measure at least of religion in the schools.

(c) Gladstone’s close absorption in his Irish Land measure, and his other Ministerial occupations, left him but a ‘ small share in the frame of the Education Bill ’ here under discussion. There are, nevertheless, ample indications of his general views, at that time, of- the place of religion in education. (1) The first draft of the Bill (which he approved) Contained provision for definite religious instruction in the schools, with a conscience clause. (2) Herbert Paul, in his History of Modern England (London, 1905, vol. 111., p. 218) says: ‘Mr. Forster was in favor of unsectarian teaching. . . In this respect he was at variance with the Prime Minister’ (Mr. Gladstone), ‘a strict denominationalist, who held that religion without dogma was a contradiction in terms.’ Under strong parliamentary pressure he was forced to accept the Cowper-Temple clause, which directed that, in rate-supported schools, ‘ no catechism or religious formulary distinctive of any particular denomination shall be taught.’ In a letter to Lord Lyttelton (October 25-, 1870) he declared that

the final settlement of the question of religious instruction in the schools was in no sense my choice or that of the Government. Our first proposition. was by far the best.’ Owing, however, to opposition and apathy (said he in the same letter, p. 940) ‘ the very utmost that could be done was to arrange the matter as it now stands, where the exclusion is limited to the formulary, and to get rid of the popular imposture of undenominational instruction.’ Furthermore, in the Times Weekly Edition of August 3, 1894, we find Lord Selborne quoting as follows from a speech delivered by Mr. Gladstone in 1870: — It is our wish that the exposition of the Bible-in-Schools should take its natural course, that it should be confined to the simple and devout method of handling which is adapted to the understanding and character of children. But we do not admit that that simple and devout method of teaching can be secured by an attempt to exclude all reference to tenets and doctrines. That is an exclusion which cannot be effected, and, if it could, it ought not to be.’ So strongly, indeed, did Gladstone favor definite religious instruction that, in a letter to Forster (October 17, 1870), he argued for the introduction of such dogmatic formularies as the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, the Thirty-nine Articles, and the Apostles’ Creed into rate-supported schools that were subject to the Cowper-Temple clause. (3) Another evidence of Gladstone’s old and pronounced leaning for denominational religious instruction is furnished by his biographer, Lord Morley: ‘ The old parliamentary grant to the denominational schools was to be doubled. This last provision was Mr. Gladstone’s own.’

(4) The, same eminent writer states that Gladstone’s ‘ private interest in public education ’ (although it ‘ did not amount to zeal ’) was at this time (1869-1870) ‘at bottom that of a churchman.’ The English Education Act of 1870 was admittedly a compromise.’ ‘ln arranging this compromise the members of the Cabinet were, no doubt, influenced by their own predilections. The Prime Minister ’ (Mr. Gladstone) ‘ was himself an ardent adherent of the Church of England, and a VicePresident of the Council was strongly opposed to the separation of education from religion. These two men were, in consequence, able to carry a Bill which was much more acceptable to their Conservative opponents and to the Church, than to their own supporters and Nonconformist England. In their defence, however, it is right to add that the compromise which they adopted was one which commended itself to the great masses of the people.’ The same writer tells how ‘the Opposition rallied in support of the Minister. (Mr. Gladstone), who was doing so much to preserve denominational education and the Nonconformists were defeated by a majority of seven votes to one (421 to 60). Finally (not to multiply quotations any further), the authoritative Dictionary of National Biography, says of the Education Act of 1870: ‘ Gladstone had little to do

with the great Education Bill of this year. . . . He left it almost entirely to William Edward Forster, though he occasionally made concessions to the Church which seriously offended dissenters. He was, in truth, a denominationalist, and had no sympathy with the unsectarian teaching of religion in Board schools.’ Yet, without so much as a scrap of evidence, the Evening Post asserts, in the most positive manner that/ at that very period, Gladstone strict ‘ denominationalist ’ —stood stoutly for a policy of ejection of religion from the schools, ‘ exactly ’ as it is now ejected by law in New Zealand.

But, even if Gladstone were proved to be as great a foe, as he ever was a warm friend, of denominational religious education, such a circumstance would not in the smallest degree affect the real issues of this discussion.

ARCHBISHOP TEMPLE MISQUOTED. Archbishop Temple was the second of the three noted Englishmen who were quoted by the Evening Post as ‘ authorities ’ who took their stand with that Wellington daily for the utter exclusion of religion from the school-processes of education. £ Archbishop Temple,’ said the Post, 'was not an atheist, yet he

wrote: “Secular schools would not be irreligious. I am by no means sure that on the whole they would not be more religious.” ’ Here, again, the Post gave no reference. But, like so much more of its argumentative material, this quotation seems to have been dug out of the ‘ valuable pamphlet ’ of Professor Mackenzie, entitled ‘ Defence of the Secular Solution.’

In those brief references to ‘Archbishop Temple (thirty-one words only), the Evening Post contrives to convey no fewer than three distinct errors in matters of fact.

1. First error: The Post distinctly suggests to its readers that I somehow stated or implied that Archbishop Temple was an atheist. This is a persistent and entirely regrettable resort of the Post —setting me wrong in order to set me right; denying, as my statements or suggestions, ideas that never even knocked for admission at the r ante-chamber of my brain. 2. ,Second error : The Post’s remarks (quoted above) clearly imply that it is citing in favor of its own view the words of a noted Archbishop of the Anglican Church. Such an implication is distinctly misleading. ‘ Archbishop ’ Temple never used the words with which the Post credits him. Neither did * Bishop ’ Temple. The words in question were employed by the Rev. Mr. Temple in 1856, when he was an employee of the Education Office, long decades before he rose to ttye rank of Archbishop of Canterbury. To The ‘ plain man ’ who; reads the Evening Post it is one thing to quote a young, unknown Education Office official, of fiftyfive years ago, as an ‘authority’ on this religious question; it is a very different thing to quote as an ‘ authority ’ thereon a great Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, whose name was for long years tolerably familiar to newspaper readers of our time, even on this outer rim of the English-speaking world. The distinction is one of some controversial importance. And, in any case, it was the duty of the Post to refrain from creating a palpably false impression, .in this matter, among its readers. We shall presently See that Dr. Temple, both as Bishop and Archbishop, was a strenuous upholder of the intimate and essential union of religion with education. 3. Third error.; The Post distinctly conveys to its readers the following impression in regard to ‘ Archbishop ’ Temple: That the term ‘secular schools,’ as used by him, means the same thing that the term ‘secular schools mean in New Zealand—naniely, schools from which religious teaching and religious worship and religious influences are absolutely and rigorously excluded. Such, indeed, is the whole trend and purpose of the Post's argument in this connection. It appeals to its three ‘ authoirties ’ in ‘ support of the State school system,’ which has been in operation in New Zealand ‘ for more than thirty years.’ And, more specifically, the Post adduces these three ‘ authorities ’ to ‘ prove ’ that the utter exclusion of all religion from our State schools does not represent ‘the negative form’ of atheism. It makes ‘ Archbishop Temple its ally and backer in the de-Christianising of the public schools.

Let us see. The, Post's quotation from ‘Archbishop ’ Temple runneth thus: ‘ Secular schools would not be irreligious. lam by no means sure that on the whole they would not be more religious.’ I find that these words (as well as the fuller quotation in Professor Mackenzie’s pamphlet) form part of a long letter written by Dr. Temple to his sister Netta on April 15, 1856. This letter is published in Memoirs of Archbishop Temple , by Seven Friends; edited by E. G. Sandford, Archdeacon of Exeter (London, 1906, 2 vbls.), vol. 11,, pp. 642-643. The greater part of the letter is reproduced hereunder, including so much of the context as is required to bring clearly before the reader the meaning, attached by the Rev. Mr. Temple to the term , ‘ secular schools.’

(To be continued.)