HL Deb 04 May 1893 vol 12 cc33-43

Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.

THE BISHOP OF SALISBURY, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, said, the principle of the measure was to permit parents of a sufficient number of children attending Board schools to make application to have separate religious instruction given to them in those schools, provided they did not put the ratepayers to any expense, and provided they did not interfere with the efficiency of the schools. It was, he imagined, a principle of the Common Law that the faith of the father was the faith of the children, unless there was a special understanding to the contrary. At present, unfortunately, the children of parents who belonged to the Church of England were not instructed in the Board schools as devout parents would wish them to be. The hard work and general conditions of life of the parents prevented them from themselves teaching their children. The result was that the children went in herds to the Board schools, where there was but little religious instruction, as Churchmen understood it, and where parents were not consulted as to the character of the teaching given to their children. In many such schools there was, indeed, no instruction of the kind at all. He did not wish to make any attack upon the School Boards, which, in many instances, did their best in the difficult position in which they were placed. He thought, however, that it would be a very good thing to stimulate them a little, so as to induce them in all cases to use their powers to the full extent. Even the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments were not taught in Board schools as a rule, notwithstanding that promise had been made by the Department in 1888. The case of children of Jewish parents had been met by the London School Board by the adoption of a special syllabus of religious instruction. He rejoiced that this consideration had been shown to the Jews; but he might point out that, if ever there was an infringement of the Cowper-Temple Clause, it was this syllabus. He would, however, be the last person to invoke the interference of the Education Department in the matter. He did not wish to level down the excellent religious teaching given to Jewish children, but he did maintain that the Christian Church should be allowed to level up the religious instruction given to Christian children. He moved the Second Reading of the Bill.

Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a." —(The Lord Bishop of Salisbury.)

THE EARL of CRANBROOK

My Lords, I am quite aware that the details of the Bill will require a great deal of consideration. Its principle, however, I strongly approve, for the time has I think come when we ought to "take stock" of what is going on around us. In London a great controversy has recently arisen. The question now is, not whether an emasculated Christianity only can be taught in Board schools, but actually whether it is competent to teach doctrines adverse to Christianity, and to tell children not to believe certain things. In the case of Roman Catholic children and Jews concessions have been made to the religions views of parents which are withheld from members of the Church of England. Let it be fair all round. In The Times of that morning there appeared a very remarkable letter from Dr. James Martinean. He said— The error of the past has been the attempt to fit one uniform system of religious instruction to the wants of so variegated a whole as the population of a London school district. If you satisfy the ecclesiastical standard, you wrong the miscellaneous host of unattached yet not irreligious people. If you insist on the latitude necessary to make the best of their religious proclivities, you disappoint the genuine Church disciples of the indispensable nurture of their piety. The simple remedy is to recognise the different requirements of their consciences and make distinct provision for each. In any school already worked under the 1871 rule this may be done by adding a department to the religious teaching conformed to Mr. Atherton Riley's restrictive condition, without prejudice to the freedom established elsewhere. I do not see why he and his friends should not have all that they desire, provided they are content with the consideration justly due to their own consciences, and refrain from all unfriendly attitude towards the different ideas and usage of their co-partners. If, in deference to the special requirements of the Jews, arrangements of different type have been thought admissible indifferent schools, there seems nothing to forbid the co-existence of similar though minor varieties within the same school. It would imply, of course, the presence of a more or less mixed staff of teachers, in order to conduct with intelligence, sympathy, and sincerity both the dogmatic and the undogmatic instruction. But, at all events, in the large London Board schools, I do not think that this would occasion any difficulty. This is a remarkable admission. It is an admission that the difficulty cannot be met by a system of undogmatic religion, as Dr. Martineau calls it. In principle there is no such thing as pure and undogmatic religion. It is impossible for a teacher, if he is deeply imbued with certain ideas, to avoid communicating them to the children he is teaching. If you bring the instruction down, you must bring it down to a purely secular education. That being the case, are your Lordships prepared to eliminate religion from schools altogether? If so, you will be adopting a system which is being opposed in every country in Europe. It is the case now both in France and Belgium. The Bill of the right rev. Prelate proposes one way of meeting the difficulty, and it is a way which well deserves consideration. Why cannot religious education be provided without injury to the conscience of anyone? Without dwelling too long upon the topics involved in this subject, I wish merely to say that that which is given to the Jews is demanded by Roman Catholics and by Churchmen alike, and I contend that that demand ought to be conceded.

*THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY

My Lords, it is difficult to exaggerate the importance of the question raised by this Bill. The noble Earl who has just sat down has protested against the elimination of religious teaching from our schools; but I am of opinion that the most decided step that could be taken (the right rev. Prelate will forgive; me, but I say it in all seriousness) towards the ultimate elimination of religious instruction from our Board Schools would be for your Lordships to adopt the principles laid down in this Bill. I desire to speak with the greatest possible respect of the motives which the right rev. Prelate has in bringing forward this Bill,, and I desire to speak with the greatest respect: for, and most entire sympathy with, those who desire that their children should receive religious instruction; but the unfortunate experience of the past, and the bitter discussion, after which the matter was settled by the compromise known as the Cowper-Temple Clause, should lead us to be very cautious in re-opening that discussion. The difficulty is an immense one. If it were possible that the various religious denominations of the Kingdom could lay aside their rivalries, no objection, I suppose, would be raised to the Bill; but we know perfectly well that nothing of the kind can happen. The Bill will constantly raise the most bitter controversies. The matter would not be loft entirely in the hands of the parents, but they would be stirred up by the ministers of every denomination for the purpose of raising controversy,, and the end of that would be, in my opinion, a far stronger movement in favour of secular teaching than has ever been experienced. It is for that reason that I object altogether to the Bill now before the House. With regard to the teaching of Jewish children, if what has been stated is correct, I should say there has been a distinct violation of the Cowper-Temple Clause, but I have not yet received full accounts of what has been done in that respect. We are face to face with an enormous difficulty; face to face with a problem which we have not the means of solving. I do not believe that the parents of the vast majority of the children of this country are so devoutly attached to the inculcation of particular religious dogmas upon their children as is supposed by those who teach those dogmas; and not having the means of solving the problem before us, and looking at the friction and contention which apparently the noble Earl opposite himself does not desire to provoke, I so strongly object to the passing of the Bill that I am obliged to move that it be read this day six months.

Amendment moved, to leave out ("Now") and add at the end of the Mean ("this day six mouths.")—(The Earl of Kimberley.)

*THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

My Lords, I am entirely unable to agree with the noble Earl opposite that the Cowper-Temple Clause has put a stop to the controversy on this question. The Cowper-Temple Clause has been an absolute failure, and has not introduced what it was expected to introduce— namely, free religious teaching with simple setting aside of particular religious formula;, such as the Catechism. On the contrary, in a very large number of Board schools it has had the effect of banishing all definite doctrinal teaching altogether, and has produced either no religious teaching at all, or merely reading of the Bible without note or comment. And that has not produced religious peace. The movement which is now going on in London shows that it has not produced religious peace. The efforts of denominations, like the Jews and the Roman Catholics, to escape from it, clearly show that it has not produced religious peace. In every part of the country there is still the greatest strain on the part of the clergy of the Church of England, and a very large proportion of the laity, to escape from the danger of the Board school, lost restraint, which you call a compromise, should be imposed on the consciences of the children of the Church of England. I support the Bill, because I believe, without in the least committing myself to details, that it constitutes the only eirenicon which we can contemplate, and is the only prospect of peace between multifarious conflicting religious bodies. The noble Earl fears great religious turmoil in the various bodies who are each to provide at their own expense during a fixed hour of the day a place where a man paid by themselves can teach the religion which the parents prefer to have. What is there controversial or quarrelsome or dangerous in that? I cannot help thinking that we are under a disadvantage in arguing this question precisely from the fact that there is a limited sympathy with religious teaching on the part of those who are opposed to us. If I were arguing in a Japanese Assembly I should be certain of carrying my point. It is because noble Lords will not detach themselves from their own convictions on the point, and will imagine they can force upon others the views they entertain upon religious education. My contention is that they have no right whatever to attempt to force upon either children or parents their own views as to what religious education is. The parent alone has the right to determine what the religious education of his child shall be; and what we have to do is, so far as material conditions will permit, to take care that the parent shall always have his wishes in that respect properly observed. What we have to suffer from is that the noble Earl will not treat us as if we were Jews—he will not treat us as if we were Roman Catholics. The Church of England is, I admit, deeply divided upon this point. Almost all the clergy and a large proportion of the laity believe in what, for shortness, I will call the teaching of doctrinal religion. On the oilier hand, a large number of the laity advocate the teaching of a non-doctrinal religion; or, at all events, the elimination of all doctrine upon which anybody disagrees with anybody else. I do not believe in that any valuable residue would be left; but I do not wish to pronounce any judgment upon the point. What I ask for is the recognition that there is a very strong body of belief in the Church of England that doctrinal teaching is necessary to religious education. If you once grasp that fact—you may differ from it and may wish it were altogether otherwise, but, at all events, you will see that you cannot trample down the convictions of a very largo and earnest body of men, and you must give your attention and your efforts to the means of providing in the best way possible for the religious teaching of these children of the Church of England, and also of the many Nonconformist Bodies who have, as an article of belief from which they will not be forced, the conviction that doctrinal teaching is essential to the teaching of religion. I do not wish to argue for a moment that that is true or false; within these walls that is a wholly immaterial consideration; but I wish to show that that doctrine is extensively held, and the view is that it is not satisfied—that it is outraged by the Cowper-Temple Clause—as at present in practice, and that some measure such as that of the right rev. Prelate is necessary in order to re-introduce peace into the Church community upon the subject. I do not pledge myself to all the details of this measure; but in recognition of the fact that there is a very difficult problem in face of us, with which we have to deal, and that the present state of things satisfies no earnest person whatever, I must certainly vote for the Second Reading of the Bill.

*LORD NORTON

called attention upon this subject to a movement lately started in Birmingham of the success of which he had just received information from the Bishop of Coventry. The Birmingham School Board had already granted all that the Bishop of Salisbury's Bill aimed at by permitting clergymen who undertook the task to give lessons in the Board Schools of definite religious teaching without any of the restrictions which the Bill imposed. They all had one object in view—namely, that the children attending the schools should have such definite religious teaching as their parents desired. There were only two modes of arriving at that object, either by arrangement with the Board Schools to give religious instruction more explicitly than they now did, by what was generally called a religious syllabus, or through permission to the parents of different religious denominations as the Bill proposed. In refusing either alternative they must make up their minds to allow our whole national system of education to become merely secular, and to trust to religious instruction being found elsewhere from those schools. The noble Earl opposite said the adoption of this proposal, which would be sure to break down, would only end in a purely regular system. That, however, was, in their opinion, the probable result of doing nothing. Under the Act of 1870, no doubt clergymen might have assumed the religious teaching in all the Board Schools by general consent; and it was merely because they objected to the system, and most unwisely held themselves aloof, that they had lost the position they were now seeking to recover. The Bill proposed rather liberally that the parents of any five children in a Board School should be able to demand that religious instruction should be provided for those children.

THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY

They pay for it themselves.

*Lord NORTON

said, the parents would call upon the Board, and the Board would immediately entertain the application and provide an instructor at the expense of the parents and not out of the rates. The object of the Bill was good, but the mode of carrying it out was utterly impracticable. Suppose that in a large school, say of 1,500 children, several groups of five children demanded religious teaching, an instructor would have to be appointed for each group. Again, the children in the group would not be of the same age, and more than one instructor would be required because of the different ages. Obviously such a plan could not possibly work. He asked the right rev. Prelate to consider whether a parent who was so anxious for the religious education of his children, and was ready to pay for it, would not be likely to give his children religious education at home? There were many people who thought that school teachers were not the proper people to teach religion. This was a matter that should be dealt with by private agreement rather than by an Act of Parliament. It was impossible to frame a measure for carrying out such a proposal without infinite difficulty. There was not a line in the Bill before the House that would not provoke opposition, and it contained hardly a provision that could not easily be evaded. At the present moment, as he had pointed out, the object in view was attained by private agreement in Birmingham. The School Board there arranged with the clergy that on two days in each week half-an-hour should be given to Clergy in all Board Schools for the teaching of religion. He understood that that plan was working satisfactorily, and he asked if it would not be a much bettor way of arriving at the object they all had in view than by a measure such as that before the House?

*LORD PLAYFAIR

said, this Bill broke down the compromise of 1870, which he aided Mr. Forster as much as he could in obtaining; and he thought their Lordships would be extremely disappointed with the result if it were passed. In the first place, if they carried out their principle that the parents of any five children in any school having a particular form of religion should have the right to demand to have them taught in that form of religion, the first thing the public would ask was that the same right should be given in denominational schools that was now sought to be forced on Board Schools. They would say that there being five Dissenters in one of these schools, which might be the only school in the parish, the Nonconformist minister should have a right to enter and give religious instruction in it. In 1870 there was a large body of educationists who desired that all schools should be secular, but that religious education might he given out of school hours. Their Lordships would, by passing this Bill, be giving a great impulse to that movement. There were many enemies of denominational schools, and when the Bill passed to another House, they would find that the compromise of 1870 would be further broken down by many with great willingness in order to introduce a system of secular education, which personally he thought would be a mistake. He was, therefore, sorry the Bill bad been brought forward, and would vote against it.

*LORD COLCHESTER

desired to say a few words as the only Representative of the London School Board in their Lordships' House. The Cowper-Temple Clause might mean almost anything, and those who construed it most strictly took the view that the unsectarian teaching required by that compromise was not the exclusion of the doctrinal teaching of particular sects, but the exclusion of all religious teaching whatever. The great point on which there had been so much discussion recently, was whether the religious education should not include the teaching of the Divinity of Christ. That had been denounced "as in the interest of Episcopacy" — why, it was difficult to understand. There was a strong feeling throughout the country that religious education should be given. He was sure that was the feeling in the Metropolis, for the candidates at the recent Election who advocated religious education met with great support. He would not say that the particular terms of this Bill should be carried out, or that the parents of so small a number of children as five should be allowed to do what was suggested. Still, if it could be done, it might be very successful. If the ratepayers were anxious that their children should receive religious education they ought to have it. For those reasons he hoped their Lordships would consent to the Second Reading of the Bill, as it was generally admitted some change was required.

*THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

could not, even at so late an hour, allow such a discussion to pass without saying a few words upon the subject before the House. He assured their Lordships that this Bill originated in the conviction, widely entertained, that unsectarianism was very fast becoming a religion in itself; that it was advancing into families which accepted definite doctrine, and would, if it continued its advance, change the religion, first of individuals, then of families, then of parishes, and then of the country. The noble Earl was much mistaken if he thought that the Bill was clerical or ministerial in any sense. The convictions of parents upon the subject of religion were becoming much deeper than ever they had been before; in fact, he did not believe those convictions were over more deeply rooted throughout the country than at the present time. It was a great mistake to suppose that a spiritual or religious movement would produce a reaction, and that a secular condition of things would not. Sectarian education had been tried. It existed in America and in France, and was in both cases producing the widest and deepest reaction. Over the whole of France a large number of private religious schools were springing up, and while some of the unsectarian schools were poorly attended, the private religious schools in the hands of the clergy were full and flourishing. A book published by the late head of the Police Department of France, giving a narrative of the greatest crimes committed in the country during many years past, contained in its last pages a tremendous denunciation of the system of secular education in France, and traced the crime, which had been so greatly increasing, to the fact that such an enormous mass of young people were brought up without any sense of the Being to whom they were accountable or of a future. He was anxious, however, that there should be no violence of feeling in the matter. Whatever was done ought to be done quietly, gently, in the most Christian spirit; but he could not see that any measure could move more gently and Christianly in the direction of obtaining for children an education such as their parents desired them to have. What could be more simple than that the parents should be allowed to go to the Board Schools and say—"If you will give us three hours in the week and a roof, we and our friends will provide a religious instructor to teach our children in the religious principles in which we desire them to be taught"? Such instruction would be given without cost to the ratepayers, and it was not to interfere with the arrangements or discipline of the schools.

On Question whether ("now") shall stand part of the Motion? Their Lordships divided:—Contents 32; Not-Contents 21: Majority 11.

Resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the whole House.