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 LI E) RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVLRSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS
 
 NATIONAL EDUCATION UNION. 
 
 THE PEE SENT 
 
 DUTY OF CHURCHMEN 
 
 TOWARDS 
 
 NATIONAL EDUCATION: 
 
 BY 
 
 THE EBV. ALFEED BAEEY, D.D, 
 
 f rhuipnl of fling's College, ITonbou ; 
 
 A PAPER READ AT THE 
 
 CHURCH CONGRESS HELD AT NOTTINGHAM, 
 
 OCTOBER IOth TO ISth. 1871. 
 
 Manchester — The City Buildings, Corporation Street. 
 London — 18, Parliament Street, S. W. 
 
 /
 
 NATIONAL EDUCATION UNION. 
 
 PAPEE ON EDUCATION. 
 
 BY 
 
 THE EEY. ALFRED BAERY, D.D„ 
 
 PEINCIPAL OF king's COLLEGE, LONDON, 
 
 I crave your indulgence if I depart a little from 
 the programme which has been sketched out for our 
 educational papers. I do not propose to inquire into 
 the systems of foreign countries, and the many im- 
 portant lessons which they teach. I address myself 
 solely to the question which is, I doubt not, at this 
 moment uppermost in the minds of all who hear 
 me — What is our duty, not only as Churchmen, but 
 as Englishmen and as Christians, under the new and 
 most critical era which has been introduced Ixy the 
 Education Act of 1870 ? I have ventured to accede 
 to the invitation of the Committee and to bring this 
 great subject before you, simply on the ground that, 
 having been engaged all my life in the work of reli- 
 gious education — having, as one of the secretaries 
 of the National Education Union, tried to help those 
 who fought in its cause against the scarcely veiled 
 secularism of the Birmingham League — having, as a 
 member of the London School Board, seen the first 
 workings of the new system, and gained some con- 
 ception of its difficulties, its advantages, and its 
 dangers, in a sphere of immense importance — I may 
 hope to lay before you some few suggestions, based 
 not on theory, but on personal knowledge and ex- 
 perience. 
 
 *Rep»inte(l l).v permission.
 
 Allow me, first, briefly to recall to your minds the 
 real nature of the now famous Education Act, in its 
 relation to religious education generally, and the 
 Church of England in particular. I am forced to do 
 so, old as the subject is. We have been reading 
 lately denunciations of it in what are usually called 
 '^Liberal" papers, on the ground that it is actually 
 framed in the interests of what the waiters are 
 pleased to call '^ Denominational Education," and 
 under that clerical influence, which is apparently to 
 advanced Liberals what the agency of the Jesuits 
 and the Pope is to some ultra-Protestant members of 
 the House of Commons. We, who know something 
 of the Act, have felt inclined to rub our eyes, and 
 ask whether it is we ourselves or the writers who are 
 dreaming, or whether the Act has been somehow 
 changed (in dreamland, of course) since it received 
 the Eoyal Assent. Let us clearly understand the 
 relation of the Act to religion and to the Church. 
 It is an Act which utterly ignores the Church 
 altogether ; you need not change a single word in it 
 if the Church were disestablished to-morrow. It is 
 an Act which, for the first time, not only recognises 
 secular schools (as I think it was bound to do), but 
 which (without, as it seems to me, any reason or 
 propriety) actually refuses to acknowledge, to reckon, 
 to test, or to reward the religious instruction which is 
 even intellectually the highest and largest educating 
 influence, and which, as events have proved, the 
 voice of the country has imperatively and almost 
 unanimously demanded. It is an Act which, while 
 it certainly does recognise existing voluntary schools, 
 provides for a rivalry in which they will be heavily 
 and (as some think) hopelessly over-w^eighted, by 
 extending the taxation for the new system over large 
 areas, including districts which are by liberality and 
 religious earnestness already supplied with schools, 
 
 /^ 

 
 and so forcing their supporters to pay rates vrith. one 
 hand and subscriptions with the other. It is an Act 
 which, while it allows districts already fully supplied 
 to go on without any new machinery, refuses them 
 the exercise in any shape of the power of compulsion, 
 with which it paternally strengthens the hands of 
 School Boards, the creations of the new legislation. 
 And then people have the face to call this an Act, 
 conceived in the interests of the existing schools, 
 and — ineffable horror to a liberal mind ! — ^favourable 
 to the Church and the Clergy ! And why is this ? 
 Just because it does bare justice — very bare indeed — 
 to the existing schools, of which the Church of 
 England has created the great mass, and refuses to 
 doom them to ^' painless extinction," or painful 
 confiscation. We have come to this — that if the 
 Church receives some share of the justice or consi- 
 deration which is accorded to every other body of the 
 community, she is supposed to be unduly favoured, 
 and, where she is not actually despoiled, the cry is 
 raised that she is endowed. 
 
 But yet, while the Education Act is what I have 
 thus described it to be, it is most earnestly to be 
 hoped that Churchmen will accept it resolutely, and 
 work it loyally. I believe that some such Act was 
 urgently needed — ^that the old system, whatever its 
 excellence, did not meet, and, even had it received 
 due encouragement (instead of being too often 
 snubbed and starved at headquarters), could not have 
 met, the necessities of the case — that the creation of 
 an efficient and complete system of national educa- 
 tion was at once a matter of life and death in respect 
 of expediency, and a sacred duty both to God and 
 man. I believe that in the present condition of the 
 country, in which, however much we may regret it, 
 we are bound to confess that the Church is not the 
 Church of the whole nation, nay, that the Gospel
 
 e 
 
 does not command the homage of all educated minds, 
 and often fails to reach great masses of our people, 
 the system which it inaugurates is — speaking gene- 
 rally — the only statesmanlike and the only possible 
 system. I believe that the power of religious truth 
 and faith, and the influence of the Church of Eng- 
 land — even as it is, and, still more, as it might be — 
 will work and will assert their spiritual leadership 
 under any system which gives them "fair play and 
 no favour," or, I will even say, some play and no 
 large amount of disfavour. It is singular and in- 
 structive to contrast the honest and truly liberal sup- 
 port which this Act has received from the more Con- 
 servative elements of English society, with the 
 intolerant denunciations proceeding from an opposite 
 quarter. And a Churchman may feel some pride 
 when he compares the calm and yet earnest and dig- 
 nified attitude of the Church on this great question, 
 with the vehemence and noisy agitation of some 
 other sections of the community. For there is a 
 quietness which is not the listlessness of indifference, 
 but the repose of conscious strength. 
 
 Surely it is right that Churchmen should avoid 
 two extremes on this matter. It is not desirable 
 that they should be too enthusiastic in favour of 
 the new system ; that they should themselves 
 forget or allow others to forget that they have 
 made great sacrifices in accepting it, and that the 
 necessity and duty of accepting it prove the existence 
 of some features in the relation between Church and 
 State, and in the position of religion in England, 
 which are most serious in themselves, and ominous 
 of much still more serious in the future. Yet it is 
 still less desirable that they should in any degree 
 endeavour to disturb it, or stand aloof from its work- 
 ing, refusing to recognise what is and what must be, 
 in a vain though natural longing for what might be in
 
 an ideal state of society and of the Church herself. 
 The Church stands to these systems as Samuel and 
 the prophetic power stood to the introduction of the 
 kingdom in Israel : she may appeal, as he did, to 
 the work of the past; she may mourn, as he did, 
 over the needful introduction of a more distinct tem- 
 poral power; but she still says, as he said, ''God 
 forbid that I should cease to pray for you; I will 
 teach you the good and the right way : only fear 
 the Lord and serve Him in truth with all your 
 heart." 
 
 There seem to be two main duties to do. The 
 first is to maintain at all hazards, under all difficul- 
 ties, and at any price, the existing Church Schools. 
 Men tell us that they are doomed ; that they cannot 
 stand against the completer organisation of the new 
 rate- supported system ; that voluntary liberality will 
 never bear up against the solid heavy pressure of 
 legal taxation. I answer, ''If they have a reason for 
 existence, a right to live, they will never di^." Now 
 I need not go about to prove to this assembly that if 
 they are but true to themselves, to the power of 
 Church unity and Church organisation, to the un- 
 speakable advantage of a spiritual authority and 
 a definite creed, they ought to be able to do more 
 for religious education — and therefore, as I believe, 
 for education of the spirit in the highest and widest 
 sense — than any schools that are destitute of all 
 these advantages, and fettered by the jealousies of 
 opposing sects. Even if they should be inferior in 
 mechanical organisation and material resources, yet 
 their spiritual advantage must tell; their inherent 
 life and power must be very distinctly manifested. 
 If it were but for this, they would have clearly proved 
 their mission. But what I think is too often for- 
 gotten is, that their reflex influence on the new 
 schools will be of priceless value. That influence
 
 8 
 
 will tell primarily and powerfully by aiding the 
 growth of a religious tone and the maintenance of 
 substantial religious teaching in the new schools, 
 such as, in America, for want of such reflex in- 
 fluence, have been slowly and gradually, but too cer- 
 tainly lost. You know how by God's grace and 
 blessing the mind of England is determinately set, 
 and the voice of the country has energetically an- 
 nounced that it is set on religious education. If so, 
 whilst schools which must be religious exist, it will 
 be impossible to make the Board Schools, schools 
 of theoretical or virtual secularism. But, second- 
 arily yet really, I value the influence of voluntary 
 energy on a rate -supported and legal system. At 
 present all is energy, liberality, and earnestness in 
 the cause ; but what will be the case when the Bill 
 is presented, and the reckoning has to be paid ? Is 
 there no danger that at the next election the School 
 Boards men will be sent in (as I have heard that they 
 are occasionally sent in to town councils and vestries) 
 pledged to economy at any price ? Will there be no 
 value then in the co-existence of a system which 
 relies not upon the power of legal coercion but of 
 voluntary liberality and duty, and which is able to 
 ask, " How much can I do ?" and not, '' How little 
 will serve the turn ? " I am perfectly convinced that 
 every man who supports a Church school does a 
 double service — a service direct and primary, in the 
 creation of a school, which must have the strongest 
 and most living power of true education, — and a 
 service, indirect, and yet I hardly like to call it 
 secondary, in the creation of an influence which will 
 tend to deepen religious spirit and foster a nobler liber- 
 ality in the rate -supported school which rises by its side. 
 The old system will surely not be allowed to perish 
 or even to decay. There have been few things more 
 striking and more encouraging than the marvellous
 
 9 
 
 answer which the adherents of that system have 
 made to the friendly challenge given in the new 
 Act. In the last six months of 1870 there were 
 applications for more than 3,000 building grants for 
 creating or enlarging schools on the old system. 
 The Education Department seems to have stood 
 fairly aghast. The National Society, with a noble 
 and wise audacity, has pledged two years' income 
 to aid the movement. If the voluntary system 
 is (as we are told) dying, it certainly dies with 
 the strangest exhibition of vitality. The first 
 duty of Churchmen is simply to persevere in this 
 career so gloriously begun. We have only to 
 make our schools good schools ; bring them under 
 Government inspection for the sake alike of improve- 
 ment and of test ; take care to keep up in them a 
 true religious tone, and plain, simple, definite teach- 
 ing; be sure by no means, direct or indirect, to 
 tamper with the obligations of the Conscience Clause, 
 or infringe religious liberty ; and we need have no 
 fear. The experience of the past has shown us that 
 every good Church school has been a tower of 
 strength; the experience of the future must show 
 that such schools will command and will gradually 
 gain — even in respect of compulsory powers — the 
 equality which they deserve and which alone they 
 can require. To keep them up will require much 
 sacrifice : men of the world, who are well versed in 
 the lore of self-interest, and accustomed to trust in 
 material resources and strength, smile at the idea 
 that such sacrifice can be sustained. But the Church, 
 I hope, will teach them, as she has taught them 
 before, that there are powers in the kingdom of 
 heaven on earth which are ^'not dreamt of in their 
 philosophy." 
 
 The other great duty of Churchmen is to aid and 
 to watch the School Boards now gradually extending
 
 10 
 
 over all the area of our great towns. I say **to 
 aid ;" for I rejoice to see that the supporters of the 
 older educational system, and notably the clergy, are 
 mostly ready, and mostly welcomed in that readiness, 
 to help and guide the new system also. In this work, 
 the chief point of present necessity is to support, 
 honestly and generously, the attempt which is now 
 being very earnestly made to keep up a really 
 religious tone, and — under all the restrictions of the 
 Act, in the presence of the difficulties of our wretched 
 divisions, and of the active Secularist party, which 
 gloats over them and profits by them — to give true 
 and unfettered Bible teaching. It is easy to see that, 
 if we regarded the interests of our own Church 
 schools solely, it would be our policy to drive the 
 State schools into secularism, sure that the recoil 
 from it would fill our benches. I have seen such 
 policy advised; but I can conceive nothing more 
 wicked, nothing more suicidal, than to purchase 
 what would then deserve to be called a ^* sectarian" 
 advantage at the expense of endangering the Chris- 
 tianity of the country. It is easy, again, to raise 
 theoretical difficulties, either from the secularist or 
 from the dogmatic point of view, as to the logical 
 inconsistencies in which the attempt to give pure 
 Bible teaching, without proselytism and without 
 conflict, will land us. But the majority of School 
 Boards, while they disclaim utterly the impossible 
 task of bringing out and exhibiting a creed with which 
 none shall find fault, believe that there is a large 
 amount of ground really common to the great mass 
 of English Christians ; and that the ordinary school 
 teaching, as a matter of fact, does keep, and ought 
 to keep, to that ground. They are going to try, 
 honestly and hopefully, to solve by practice what is 
 proved in the most logical manner to be theoretically 
 impossible* I earnestly trust that Churchmen
 
 11 
 
 generally will aid this sincere attempt to do a work 
 which in any case must be difficult enough — without 
 any resentment, however natural, of the treatment 
 which we have received from some of the Noncon- 
 formist bodies — without any thought of what will be 
 the effect of the prevalence of such religious teaching 
 on the future of Church Establishments, or on the 
 special interests of religious bodies as such. These 
 are minor considerations after all. When one is 
 brought — as lately in these discussions we have all 
 been brought — to the brink of the great gulf which 
 separates Secularism from Christianity, all other 
 thoughts seem to vanish, all other motives to be 
 burnt up in the fire of an intense resolution to hold 
 up the Cross of Christ stilly to make the Word of 
 God still, as of old, the very strength and life of our 
 national education. 
 
 The other pait of our duty to School Boards is to 
 watch them, to see that they do their duty fairly, with- 
 out respect to party interests and to clamour, in their 
 own schools, and in the relation which they hold to 
 education generally. There is at this moment one 
 important part of their more general duty, in which 
 I think that they are mostly inclined to act with im- 
 partiality, and in which it is clear that the Education 
 Department will do all it can to secure impartiality, 
 but in which there has been raised an extraordinary 
 clamour, strangely incommensurate with the impor- 
 tance of the immediate question, and monstrously 
 unjust in the false issues which it raises. I allude, 
 of course, to the provision for meeting cases of real 
 indigence under a compulsory system. The Act 
 allows Boards either to remit fees in their own schools 
 or pay them in others, according as the interests of 
 economy, education and liberty shall determine. But 
 because some Boards have proposed to pay such fees 
 in denominational, which are (speaking generally)
 
 12 
 
 Church schools, simply because the Church has done 
 her] duty in the great cause of education, there is a 
 cry [raised of ^'denominational ascendancy," ''con- 
 current endowment," and I know not what else. The 
 Liberal cause is said to be at stake; a school-rate 
 agitation of the old church-rate type is threatened; 
 and the Government, especially Mr. Forster, is over- 
 whelmed with menace and vituperation. Now what 
 is all this about ? It is acknowledged on all hands 
 that such relief should be exceptional, so that there 
 may be no educational pauperisation. In fact, it 
 is curious that we Church folks mainly insisted on 
 this, against the same people who are now raising 
 this ado, when they were fighting for the programme 
 of the League. It ought to be understood that the 
 demand for impartiality is made in defence indeed of 
 the rights of existing schools, but not principally or 
 decidedly in their interest. It is, as many well know, 
 at least a moot question, whether the admission of 
 scholars, whose fees are paid by the Board, is good 
 either for the prosperity or the independence of the 
 school. I myself, with many others, hold the opinion 
 that as a rule, if there be no difficulty or objection, 
 such children had better be admitted to Board schools 
 where they exist. But the real question is one which 
 concerns the religious liberty of the parent and the 
 pocket of the ratepayer. 
 
 As to the parent, really the question is whether, 
 after compelling him to send his child to school, we 
 are to take advantage of his poverty and wrest from 
 him the liberty of choice of a school, which we allow 
 to all other parents. Of course, it may be said that 
 ^2xasz-paupers have no rights, but this is hardly con- 
 sonant with liberality, although it may find its place 
 in the policy of Liberalism. Of course, it is easy to 
 ridicule the idea that a parent of this class cares 
 where his children go ; and perhaps if Board schools
 
 13 
 
 remain really religions schools, this may be the case. 
 But what if they should ever be secularized, assum- 
 ing the type of a school of which I heard the master 
 himself say, that under no circumstances, of intel- 
 lectual instruction or moral discipline, would he 
 allow the name of God to be used ? Will there be 
 no substantial grievance then ? And without going 
 this length, it is easy to imagine numberless cases, 
 in which a real hardship would be inflicted on the 
 poor parent by the narrow policy which the malcon- 
 tents urge upon the Boards. It is really a case of 
 religious and general liberty. We ask only a Con- 
 science Clause on this side from those who have 
 loudly and justly claimed one on the other. 
 
 As to the ratepayer, the question will practically 
 be, ''Are the School Boards to take the course 
 which is best and most economical in each case, or 
 are they to be fettered by a sectarian dread of ' sec- 
 tarianism ?' " It may be, it often will be, far wiser 
 for them, especially in rural districts and small 
 towns, to pay school fees in existing schools, rather 
 than to establish new ones. Why should they be 
 debarred from this ? Is there something so horribly 
 contaminating in a Church Catechism or Prayer- 
 book which, unless their parents wish it they need 
 not learn ? Is the presence of the parson in the 
 school so utterly demoralizing that, at whatever cost, 
 the children must be guarded from it ? The thing 
 is really preposterous. I do not care principally for 
 economy, but I do object to waste ; and when (as I 
 have said) the bill has to be presented, I think that 
 the ratepayers will object too. 
 
 But we are told that we injure the consciences of 
 the ratepayers by allowing any part of their money 
 to support denominational schools, or (as it is often 
 erroneously put) to support denominational teaching. 
 Beally this tender- conscienced ratepayer seems to
 
 14 
 
 me rather like the '* aggrieved parishioner" of 
 famous memory — a product which does not grow 
 naturally, but needs an immense amount of stimu- 
 lation from without. The rates are paid to the 
 School Boards that they may secure education for 
 the children — first by building and maintaining 
 schools, next by compulsion on parents to send their 
 children to some school, and to aid them in doing 
 so if they really require it. The responsibility rests 
 first on the Legislature, who made the Act ; then on 
 the Board who have to administer it, as well and as 
 economically as they can ; lastly, on the parent, who 
 chooses the school according to his best judgment 
 and such advice as he can trust. What can be left 
 to rankle in the tender spirit of the ratepayer ? He 
 has, probably, not felt severely the existence of this 
 very system at the present moment. For years, 
 whenever guardians have done their duty and carried 
 out Evelyn Denison's Act, the children of outdoor 
 paupers have been paid for out of the rates ; and, 
 horrible as it may appear, I am afraid that the 
 majority of such payments have gone to Church 
 schools, just because there were often no others 
 forthcoming. I doubt whether he would have found 
 out his grievance, if there had not been some kind 
 friends to enlarge upon it for their own ends. 
 
 The fact is, that this agitation is the fruit of 
 annoyance at the vitality of the existing system, the 
 power of the Church in education, and the impar- 
 tiality which the Act, the Department, and the Boards 
 generally seem inclined to show. It is clear that 
 Churchmen must sustain that impartiality against it, 
 remembering that the question is important in itself, 
 and still more important in being only one phase of 
 a far greater and more momentous conflict. 
 
 These, as it appears to me, are the two great duties 
 of Churchmen under our new Act, If I do not
 
 15 
 
 dwell on a third, — the duty of increasmg the effici- 
 ency of our Sunday schools, and our other machinery 
 for direct Church teaching of the young, — it is he- 
 cause I know that this will be dealt with by those 
 who follow me. 
 
 Under any system, under any conditions, success 
 is to those who look circumstances in the face, and 
 act accordingly. I am sure that the cause of reli- 
 gious education can never be lost until religion itself 
 has ceased to sway the heart of the nation ; and that 
 the Church can never fail to exercise a great and 
 commanding influence in the work, if Churchmen 
 show themselves in thoughtful and energetic action, 
 true to their principles and their duty. 
 
 POSTSCEIPT. 
 
 Since this Paper was written, the question of the remission and 
 payment of fees in cases of extreme poverty, has heen largely 
 discussed in School Boards. 
 
 The Wakefield, Stafford, Worcester, Oldham, Darlington, 
 Carlisle, Hastings, Liverpool, Salford, Bath, Exeter, Plymouth, 
 Halifax, Maidstone, Stoke-upon-Trent, Newark, Brighton, Bristol, 
 Manchester, Rochdale, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Chesterfield, Shef- 
 field, Oxford, Bolton, Birmingham, Stockton, Middlesborough, 
 Sunderland, Beading, and Stalybridge Boards have resolved to 
 carry out, impartially, both section 17 and section 25 of the 
 Act, as the interests of education, of liberty, and of economy, 
 may in each case direct. 
 
 The Swansea, Launceston, Falmouth, Walsall, WednesLur}^ 
 West Bromwich, and Hartlepool Boards (in spite of the remon- 
 strances of the Education Department), have resolved to remit fees 
 in their own schools, but refused to pay them in any others. 
 
 In the London School Beard, after a long and exhaustive dis-
 
 16 
 
 cussion, it appeared that the Board was so equally divided, as to 
 necessitate a compromise. The following resolution was adopted 
 (November 2nd, 1871) :— 
 
 " That, for twelve months from the present date, remission or 
 payment of fees in Public Elementary^ Schools shall be made 
 exceptionally, on proof of urgent temporary need, each case being 
 dealt with on its own merits, without prejudice to the principles 
 involved on either side, it being understood that such remission 
 or payment of fees is not to be considered as made in respect of 
 any instruction in religion." 
 
 The effect is to put off the discussion for twelve months, and 
 meanwhile to meet the acknowledged necessities of the case by 
 carrying out both sections of the Act, treating each application on 
 its own merits ; that is to say, entering into the question of the 
 actual poverty, the convenience, and the wish of the parents, but 
 not again raising the discussion of principle. 
 
 Meanwhile, it is clear that the opponents of the course recom- 
 mended in this Paper, have resolved on and endeavour to get the 
 Act altered — an endeavour which surrenders the claim of its 
 authority originally put forward on their side — an endeavour 
 which, on all grounds, ought to be strenuously resisted. It is 
 almost equally clear that the arguments used by them in the 
 discussions must, if logically drawn out, tend to the withdrawal 
 of all Government grants for existing schools ; and it may be 
 observed that a larger array is being already made in this direction. 
 It is well to be " forewarned and forearmed." 
 
 We must unite firmly to meet the various encroachments 
 threatened, remembering that, by the avowal of our opponents 
 themselves, the whole movement is only a part of a still larger 
 and more formidable attack. 
 
 A. B. 
 
 NOVEMBEE, 1871.
 
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