§ MR. LAWRENCE (Liverpool, Abercromby)I beg to ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether the managers of a voluntary school have (subject to the conscience clause) the right to take children to church during school hours as a part of the religious instruction given in the school, and whether they can require the teacher to conduct the children to the church.
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Sir WILLIAM ANSON, Oxford University)My attention has recently been called to the matters referred to in the Question, and the reply must depend on the construction to be placed on Section 7 (1) of the Elementary Education Act, 1870. That section allows a parent to withdraw his child from school on any day exclusively set apart for religious observance by the religious body to which the parent belongs; attendance at such observance does not appear to be equivalent to attendance at school, but the section would protect the parent, who alone is concerned, from any proceedings taken before magistrates for the non-attendance of his child at school on any such occasion. It follows that managers of a public elementary school have no right to take the school children to church during school hours; that religious teaching given in a church cannot be part of the instruction provided by the public elementary school, and that the teacher of the public elementary school cannot be required to conduct the children to 182 church in any of the hours during which the school is open.