.;», mmWfi / / IH^ SCHOOL EATES: IN THEIR i^elijgiou^ and |in^ . ^ U!UC SCHOOL RATES: In their Religious and Financial Aspect : and lioio the Requirements of the Education Department can best be met in the several Parishes. I DOUBT not that this subject will be handled both at Batli and at Taunton, by members of the Conference who will have had experience of it in its practical aspects, and who will be able to inform us of the actual results of Itate-sup- ported schools as they have been at work under their own eyes. I shall, therefore, apply myself to those general prin- ciples with which I am more fam.iliar in the consideration of this subject and to the results as affecting the country at large, which a somewhat careful attention to the history of the working of the Education Act of 1870 may enable me to report. This will lead me to summarise, for the information of the conference, the general aspect of the rate-school ques- tion as it affects our own diocese and County, RELIGIOUS ASPECT. And first for Kabe-supported Schools in their religious as- pect. This question, I think, ought to_be regarded by Churchmen in two points of view. 1st. — In the way it should present itself to us supposing we have a c/toice offered to us, and the question is— that which is being at this moment proposed to a large number of parishes in this county— Shall We or shall we not, on religious grounds, and in the discharge of our duty as Church men oppose the introduction of llate-supported schools ? 2nd. — As to our duties in ca.ses in which, whatever may have been our efforts and wishes, the formation of such a school is inevitable, aud as a matter of fact a rate-sup- ported school is to be. Anyhow, I fnlly believe it was intended by Mr Glad- stone that voluntary schools should be thus more liberally assisted, as a set-off against the vital changes which, four months after introducing the bill, he proposed, as regards the religious character of rate-supported schools. But I maintain that this arrangement was no real com- pensation to Churchmen for the loss sustained by them of the guarantees solemnly held out that in the v:ork- ing of an Education Rate Parliament should interpose no hindrance to the religious instruction in the creeds, for- mularies, and catechism of their own church of the children of that vast number of the ratepayers who shovdd wish for such instruction for their own children, while of course they were quite satisfied that every precaution should be taken that the children of objecting ratepayers should not be so taught. Under the Bill, as at first proposed, and largely accepted by Churchmen, parishes might have rated themselves so as to secure that religious education which was suited to the large majority of the ratepayers, while the religious scru- ples and objections of the minority would have been legally protected. Under the Act as it passed and is now at work, Churchmen, being in a vast number of parishes the large majority of the ratepayers, are compelled to see their chil- dren forbidden by law from being taught in school their own creeds and catechism. The utmost that they are allowed, in return for their own rates, to secure for the children of their own commu- nion is that they shrill read the Bible, and have it ex- plained by a teacher who must scrupulously avoid the use of the venerable Creeds and the time-honoured Catechism, which the Churchman in his conscience believes to be the best means, and knows, at any rate, to be the means ap- pointed by his own church, of instructing his children in •' the faith once delivered to the saints." Take three parents. One wishes his children not to be taught religion at all, to be brought up as an Atheist, or at any rate, not to be taught it in a day school. Thai parent's rights and wishes are most scrupulously provided for by the provisions of the Education Act. Another parent thinks that the reading of the Bible alone, with or without any explanation, is the best mode of teach- ing it religion and Christianity. That parent's rights and wishes are carefully provided for by the Act. Even in a voluntary school he may select Bible lessons alone in the school, or may vvithdraw his child altogether and teach him at home. In a rate school the Act provides for him that the Bible shall be read, with- out thoir creeds and formularies to which he ohjects, and that, not by his child only, but by all the childrtn in the school. Anotlier parent belongs to some church which holds fast by a certain ''form of sound words," of which he has heard something in the Bible, and which that same Bible teaches him to "hold fast," and wishes his child to be taught the formularies of his own church accordingly. Diat parent's rights are not protected. His scruples and preferences are set aside, and not only ignored, but trampled on by the Act. He is forbidden to have his child taught in the school supported out of his own rates the creeds and catechisms of liis own religion. This I call a religious grievance, a wrong to con- science, and a plain injustice. The practical result and upshot of all this is not a little curious. By Act of Parliament there either nrust be no religion at all taught in the rate school, or the only reli- gion allowed to be taught, is at the best, the reli- gious teaching adopted by Protestant dissenters, which consists, as we know, in the reading of the Bible with more or less of verbal explanation, but without prayer-book, catechism, creeds, or formulary. So it has come to pass, that by School-rate, Religion, in the form and mode which commend themselves to Protestant dissenters, ia imposed by Act of Parliament as the only thing to be taught not to tlceir children only, but to the children of churchmen, admitted to be in rast num- bers of such schools, the large majority attending. If this be not in plain English, the endowment of Christian teaching after the fashion practised and approved by dissenters in all our rate schools, and that not for the good of dissenters only, but for the imposition upon church- men of a mode of teaching and holding Christianity which is not theirs, I do not know what words mean. Facts at any rate are an emphatic comment on the mean- ing and the results of the Act. For we find, as might have been expected of men by no means unwise in their genera- tion, that the British and Foreign schools, conducted hitherto on the principle of the Cowper-Temple clause, as well as many other schools established by congregations of Protestant dissenters, are in large numbers, being given up as voluntary schools by their subscribers, who readily hand them over to the School Boards, in most cases in return for an annual rent, to be supported by the rates to a very large extent paid by Churchmen. Thus, not only are the rates of the community applied to secure to their children that form of religious teaching which they approve, but the same form by Act of Parliament is en- forced, under the alternative of Godless teaching alto- gether, on members of the Church of England. Church rate at any rate, forctdi a particular form of reli- gion on no man. School rate does force upon churchmen a form and mode of teaching religion, which is not their own. It says your children shall be taught that, or no- thing, in' the way of religion. I conceive churchmen in this matter have been treated in a way best described by the word which is a participle of the homely little verb do. I have no wish to go back to the past history of this curious state of things. Nor at present will I say more than that I think Churchmen themselves are most to blame for ever allowing it to come to pass. But I do venture very urgently and respectfully to submit to my fellow Churchmen whether they ought to be content •with it or submit to it for the future. My own mind is clear that, as school rate must, and will, go on, Churchmen ought to demand a just ad- ministration of School Rate. They ought never to b& satisfied till that poor shifty device, the "Cowper-Temple Clause " is expunged from the Statute Book, and a return sanctioned by Parliament to the original principles of the Education Act, under the promises which Churchmen were got largely to support it. Let elected School Boards have free liberty to decide what shall be the religion taught in their schools, or at least to make grants iu aid of church schools, grants which might easily be so arranged as to cover the cost of the secular instruction only of that school, so as to escape all religious diflBculties in the administration of the rate altogether. At the very least let Churchmen resolve to demand that whether they will claim any portion of their own rates for this object, they will insist that in rate schools, and within the walls of rate school buildings, the children shall cease to he forbidden to learn the creeds, catechism^ and formularies of their own Church. Let us, if need be, be content to waive the money right, and to deal xrith the matter as a simple question of that, of which Parliament has heard a great deal too little of late years, but which, if I read the signs of the times aright, they are likely ere long to hear a great deal more about, a Churchman's Con- science. Once let us get that intolerant enactment repealed, which forbids instruction within a Rate School, to the baptised children of Churchmen, in the creed?, prayer book, and catechism of the National Church, and am 1 too sanguine in believing tnat the voluntary labours not only of the parochial clergy in those places, but of Church school teachers, and may I not add, in these hope- ful days, of skilled lay catechists, will be heartily ren- dered without fee or reward, to train up in the creeds and prayer-book hundreds of thousands of baptised children of our ohurch, in London, in Liverpool, in Manchester, — I must come nearer home, in Yeovil, in Wincanton, in Bridg- water, — who otherwise will have no chance of ever distinc- tively learning that faith into which they were baptised ? I rejoice to be able to fortify myself, and encourage the members of this Conference by citing the words of one of oar esteemed County Members, which I quote the more gladly bacause this conference was not able to hear them read by himself in the Chapter House last year. These are the words of Mr. R H. Paget, M. P., in a paper which he ■wrote for our benefit last year : — "It is difficult to see why, with the levy of a school rate, the power of the majority should cease to exist. What reason, what principle ia there in thus ignormg the rights, offending the prejudices, and doing violence to the feelings of majorities, no matter how numerous, in order to protect the scruples of minorities already amply protected by other means ? If every mem- ber of the school board, the parents of every child attending the school belong to one and the same denomination, if they are one and all eager and anxious that the creed in which they placed their faith should be taught, that the vital points on which they found their hopes of happiness here and here- after should form an integral part of the school system, why should the existence of the mystic worda 'School Board,' * School Rate,' be held as a direct obstacle to their wishes ? But so it is. A writing is on the walls, ' No distinct Religion allowed here. So wills the State.' I can- not conceive that the mind of the people has been truly read on this matter, The time will come when an oppor- tunity for reconsideration will occur. It is a time to look forward to, a time when religion may be lifted from its pre- sent place of degradation in our schools, and be freed from the slur which now seems to attach to it. Meanwhile we have to wait, to watch, to work, persistently and boldly advocating, in season and out of season, that which we feel to be right" And if Churchmen demand this on the broad grounds of religious liberty and of protection to conscience, I believe sooner or later they will get it. I do not see how Parliament can possibly refuse so fair and righteous a demand. In consistency it is bound to yield it. For since the passing of the English and Welsh Educa- tion Act, the same Parliament has passed the Scotch Education Act of 1872. That Act embodies fearlessly the very principles for which I am now contending. I find a plain and manly statement which looks as if once again the Imperial Parliament of this country is pre- s pared to acknowledge the faith of Christ, or at least to recognise religion, in the languige of its legislation, in the Scotch Education Bill of 1872, which I in vain look for in the English Education Act of 1870. It runs thus : — *' Whereas it has been the custom in the public schools of Scotland to give instruction in religion to children whose parents did not object to the instruction so given,'' etc. And the simple fact is that the Scotch Bill, while it renders School Boards and rates compulsory in every parish in Scotland, leaves the Boards perfectly free to choose what religion shall be taught in the rate-supported school, and, as a matter of fact, the creed and catechism, which are the formularies common to the Presbyterians of Scotland, will be found to be taught in the vast majority of the Scotch rate schools, while it will be forced upon none whose parents may object. Is there no such thing as justice to England ? Are 15 millions of members of the Church of England to be refused that fair play which is dealt out to 3 millions of Scotch Presbyterians ? Will not at least the Scotch vote which helped to deprive us of our church rate be given to aid us to a School Rate in the same form which, but for the English vote, Scotland never could have obtained ? FINANCIAL ASPECT. Upon the Financial aspect of rate-supported schools i am able to throw some light from the " Abstract of accounts of School Boards," for the year ending Michaelmas, 1872, published in the last annual report of the committee of Privy Council recently issued- The country has been anxiously looking out for a speci- men *' Bill " under the new system. It is to be remem- bered that out of some 20,000 parishes, this statement applies to only a few hundreds, including however, all London, with a population of nearly 3,000,000. In Somerset it only refers to six places : Bath, Bridg- water, Chard, Yeovil, Milverton, Wincanton. It appears then that in that twelve months nearly £280,000 had been spent by School Boards in England and Wales. Ihe following items of this expenditure, in 1872, are well worth weighing if you would view rate schools in their financial aspect. I give them in round numbers : — £ Salaries of OxUcers of Boards 29,000 Salaries of Teachers of Schools 35,000 Books, apparatus, Stationery 15,000 Printing, Postage, Office Charges 13,000 Furniture and Rapairs 13,000 Sites, Purchase of Land 98.000 Building 29,000 Fees for children 4,800 Industrial Schools 7;000 £ Law Expenses 3 900 Expenses of Elections of Sc/iooi Boards . . . G,700 Other Expenses, of which £18,000 towards offices in London 20,500 Thns it appears that out of an expenditure of £280,000 under school boards, naore than one-fourth, or 59. in the pound, went in expenses quite outside of schools and edu- cation, in items of expenditure a very trifling portion of which would have been incurred under the voluntary system. From the sum spent on Teachers there ought to be de- ducted £4.500 paid by Privy Council grants, and £12,000 paid by children, which would have been derived under the old voluntary system. In the year 1871, out of a total expenditure of near £35,000 by Scl-ool Boards, nearly £11,000 was for expenses of election of Boards, and £0,300 for salaries, printing, and office charges, £3,525 for printing and othce charges, besides £4,100 under that mysterious item, " other expenses " The modest payment to School Teadicrs was about £500, and for OUldren^s Fees, £750. In the year ending September, 30, 1872, the total expen- diture of the London School Board was about £101,000; but of this sum £45,205 was tor erection of schools, £17,198 tor maintenance of schools; making a total of £G2,403, The remainder, amounting to £38,050, was expended on such objects as these,— Cost of Establishment, £16,438; Cost of first Election of Board, £0,136; Cost of Election to Vacancies^ £2.133 ; and other expenses, £22,209, which would appear to include £18,268 one year's instalment towards magnifi- cent offices in course of erection.* If we wish to find the comparative cost of Building schools per child, under the Rate system and the Voluntary, we find it in the following statement of Canon Gregory's drawn from the returns this same report. *' The report of the Education Department, just issued, illustrates the cost of building schools by voluntary commit- tees and by School Boards in a manner which may interest your readers." It says, p. 17, note:— "In the year 1872 the sum of £96.176 4s. 9d. was paid in building grants. These grants provided additional accommodation for 86,542 scholars and were met by voluntary subscriptions to the amount of £399,825 138." .And, page J 9:— "We have recommended the Public \ I find the following words in a speech of the Rev. O. Kemble, Chairmaxi of the Bath School Board, at the Bath Couference. held tw o days after that of Wells : "Be had do doubt the eipenaea of School Boards would astonish the ratepayers iu a few years time, but they were the result, i ot of schools, but of the enormoufl machinery that bad t J be brought to hnu, to carry out the Act." 10 Works Loan Commissioners to make 321 loans to School Boards, amounting to about £1,100,000, by means of which accommodation will be furnished for 115,677 scholars. In other words in voluntary Bchools, the cost of providing school buildings for 86,542 children is £496,001 ITs. 9d., or £5 14s 7d. per child. In Board Schools the cost of provid- ing for 115,677 chUdren is, £1,100.000, or £9 lis. lid. per child. In voluntary schools the above outlay includes all that is expended ; in Board Schools it is considerably in- creased by staff expenses, cost of collecting rate," &c. The Rev. E. Stuart, a clergyman in St. Pancras parish, London, has just published a statement to the effect that he is building at his own expense schools for 900 children, which will not cost £6000. The London School Board are building, at the expense of the ratepayers, schools for 750 chil Jren, within 100 yards of his schools, at a cost which will exceed £17,000. £5 143. 7d. on the voluntary, £9 lis- lid. on the rate plan ! I commend these figures tothe ratepayers of Somerset. On examining the items of Income of these Boards, 1 find the following specimens of the amount that school rates may reach in your parishes, more especially in small rural parishes, and these figures I again commend to the Somer- set ratepayer, — A school in Beds. 9^d. ; Dartmouth. 9|d. ; A school in Leicestershire. ISgd. : A school in Norfolk, 9^d. ; Croceith in Wales, 18d. &c., &c. + It is only fair to state that the greater number of dis- tricts show a rate from 3d. downwards, though a very con- siderable number figure for other sums up to 6d. 37" smaller the school district the larger, as a general rule, Viill hi the amount of the parochial school rate. HOW BEST TO MEET THE REQUISITIONS. The last-named fact should be well weighed by those of our small rural parishes which are now being perplexed by the question how to meet the requirements of the Privy Council which are being so genially rained down upon us at this present time. Of this let them be sure, that however heavily just at tJds moment a voluntary subscription to meet the requirements of the Privy Council presses, so with proportional heaviness will rest upon them in all years to come the School Rate. Let them count the cost, remembering that if now they fail to give, they will in future years be condemned to & perpettial rate, -which may beany figure from 3d. to 18d., and in small parishes is sure to be of the higher type. t I have heard of a case in a laree distxict, in which there are both rate and Toluntary achools, in whidi tea and cake for the annual feast of the Board Schoula were an item charged upon the rates. II In one case the heavy expense will be one* for all. In the other, a parish will be perpetually saddled with it. I much wish that some of the business men who are members of this Conference could consult on the possibility of devising sonie plan by which money might be borrowed, on the strength of voluntary promises to subscribe, which I imagine may be so put down as to be legsilly recoverable, or which may be thrown into the form of a promissory note Bo as to facilitate the spreading of the cost of erecting a school over a short given term of years in the same way that Board schools can be built by loan. This one diflBculty of building expenses surmounted, the cost of maintenance should not be alarming, tven to a small parish. It is quite possible with a good certificated teacher to earn half the cost of the school from the Privy Council Grant, But even if it be but a third of the cost that is so earned, the children's pence will go a long way towards an- other third, and it will surely be wiser to subscribe the other third than to have to raise at least double the amount fin order to cover extra School Board expenses) by rate. Our elementary school endowments also are now by the Endowed Schools Continuance Act of 1873, to a great extent assured to the schools to which they belong, which ought to be a great satisfaction to our parishes, and is a gain upon our jx)sition last year. It is to be remembered, too, that Mr. Head's Agricultural children's Bill, a sensible and practical piece of legislation for which our gratitude is due, will tend to give permanence and Bolidity to our schools, and to deprive them of any adventure character. With regard to our large towns, a school Board may under given circumstances be inevitable. If so it may be turned to excellent account by using its compulsory powers in order to help to fill our voluntary schools. At Bath it appears this has already been attained to the extent of 17 per cent additional attendance. Better still if a town can acquire itsvoluntarysupply so as to preclude the necessity of the formation of a Board at all. as I trust will be the case at Weston-auper-Mare, at Frome, and at Taunton. If, again, these must be rate schools, let the friends of voluntary schools endeavour to arrange so that their sphere may rather be amongst the infants, and also that class which ■would feed the ragged school Let not Churchmen com- mit the suicidal policy of standing aloof from the School Board, where such must and does exist. Let them accept facts, and, in a generous and conciliatory spirit, co-operate with those with whom they may differ in religion, seeking to reduce to a miuimuiu tho lom to a dcliftito religion, IZ which the present state of the law imposes. It is obvious that the younger the children are for whom rate schools are provided, the less will be the religious difficulty. I have been informed that at Bridgwater an admirable spirit has prevailed at the School Board, and that all parties have combined to give heartiness and reality to the religious instruction imparted in them to the young, so far as the Act would allow. In London, too, the School Board seems to have done its best to give as definite a religions training as was practicable under the Act, and they are even providing paid inspectors, under their Board, of the religious instruction imparted who are to be employed for that purpose exclusively. If in the last extremity church school managers feel com- {)elled to lease out their school buUdings to a School Board, et them be most careful as to the forms of such lease. A Form of Lease has been drawn up very carefully by the National Society, which guards the various points that ought to be insisted on under such an agreement, and I earnestly counsel church school managers and trustees to consult this document before coming to any formal agree- ment. 1 could much wish that some eflforfc might date from this Conference to supplement the exertions which sprang out of our first Diocesan Conference, in 1870, and to replenish our now exhausted special fund. A great good has been done by means of that fund : from eighty to one hundred parishes are being effectually assisted to ward off the necessity for a rate by the timely building or enlarging of schools for themselves. They are safe— along with a very large number of our parishes— I should think quite one-half — who had wisely and fully provided for their own wants long before Education Acts were even talked of. Might we not ask for something like a thank-offering from these parishes whose educational future is so happily provided for, often at the cost of departed benefactors, and and not of the present generation ? In what form could it be more suitably offered than in the shape of a contribution in aid of our now exhausted " Special Fund ?" The sum of £2,115 was contributed at the instance of this Confer- ence by the Lord Bishop and the Dean and Chapter and 77 lay and 38 clerical subscribers, and a very few Church collections. In addition to this, about £1,500 was raised la Bath specially for the schools of that city. I cannot but think that the number of lay and clerical subscribers might now be largely increased, when Church- men can look round and be sure that they themselves are educationally safe (a point of which, when the fund com- menced, no parisbcould be certain), and, at the same time, see their brethren struggling in the very crisis of their last 13 chance. I say their last ehanee ; for ere another year has passed the fate of every parish in this county must have been finally settled — whether for compulsory rate or for free subscription — for a sound Church education, or a creedless, churcbless, perhaps Christless training of the little ones — for the prevalence, in all time to come, of the motive of the constrainiuff love of Christ, or of the slavish dread of a rate collector's summons. BESOLUTION UNANDIOUSLY ADOPTED BY THE DI0CESA2T CONFEBENCE, AT WELLS, BATH, AND TAUNTON. That this Conference deems it advisable that the Diocesan Board of Education should be requested to obtain, through the Kural Deans, particulars of the requisitions sent to each school by the Education De- partment ; and the conference also requests the Board of Education to take such action upon the reports as they may deem most advisable to maintain in every parish & Parochial Church School. \ 7 7^y*^>^»^ -^-^ ■•m:^..^m:':<::'-^m