LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF ORlWV 01 EGO THE EDUCATION QUESTION AND THE LIBEKAL PAETY BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. LIFE HERE AND HEREAFTER. Sermons. Crown 8vo. 6?. CHRISTIANITY IN RELATION TO SCIENCE AND MOKALS. Crown 8vo. 3s. Gd. net. THE REFORMATION SETTLEMENT: Examined in the Light of History and Law. LONGMANS, GREEN, & CO., 89 Paternoster Row London, New York, and Bombay. THE EDUCATION QUESTION AND THE LIBERAL PARTY BY THE EEV. MALCOLM MAcCOLL, DD., F.E.S.L. CANON RESIDENTIARY OF RIPON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1902 All rights reserved CONTENTS PA OK Introductory 1 Dr. Hook's solution and Mr. Gladstone's approval .... 2 Government scheme . - . . . . . . . 3 Act of 1870 received as a choice of evils ...... 3 Nonconformist hostility to it . 4 Attitude of Churchmen . 4 Origin and motive of the Education Bill . . . . 5 Agitation against the Bill discriminated . . . . . 7 Churchmen differ about the Bill ....... 8 Author's attitude towards Nonconformists 10 True and false proselytism . . 13 Gospel ideal of Christian unity . -.' : i '. . . . 14 Newman on proselytism . . ' ro / * ". '-. . . 16 Proselytism in Church schools rare . . . ; . ; 17 Nonconformists' claim to a monopoly of grievances examined . 18 Twofold duty of the State, and Mr. Chamberlain's view . . . 19 Dr. Clifford's solution and its corollary . . . . 21 Undenominational education the negation of Christianity, and even Theism . .22 Argument from the Sermon on the Mount . . . . . 22 Undenominational religion impossible . . . ' . . .25 Testimony of experience ......... 25 Mr. Gace's catechism 26 Cowper-Temple clause no security against sectarian teaching . . 27 Religious teaching in Board schools ...... 29 The clergy and the schools 30 vi THE EDUCATION QUESTION \ PACK Erastian attitude of Nonconformists . ... . . .31 Mr. Gladstone on Erastianism and Nonconformity . . 31 Cowper-Temple clause a grievance to Churchmen ... 35 Grievance of Churchmen admitted by the Opposition . 35 Increase and composition of Voluntary schools .... 88 Leading Liberals recommend the substance of the Education Bill proleptically 40 The Local Authority 41 No taxation without representation 43 Under the Bill Nonconformists will not pay any part of religious teaching in Voluntary schools 44 Constitutional doctrines have their limitations . . . . 45 Bill will diminish clerical power ....... 48 Appointment of teachers in Voluntary schools . . . . 49 Quid pro quo of the Education Bill 51 Fallacy of Opposition's reasoning in re appointment of teachers . 55 ' The best man ' argument . .56 The ' Atmosphere ' argument 59 Nonconformists and the Bradlaugh case ..... 64 Mr. Sidney Webb on the Education Bill 65 Professor Goldwin Smith on the Education Bill .... 67 Need of definition in this controversy . . . . 69 ' False ' versus ' insufficient ' Christianity 70 What is ' insufficient Christianity '? , . . . 71 Mr. Birrell's dilemma 72 Dr. Clifford's definition of secular education implies a religious test . . 72 Opponents of the Bill offer no alternative 74 Sir Henry Fowler on the Education Bill 74 Mr. Bright quoted 75 Present system of education a failure 76 Sir H. Fowler's inconsistent conditions . . . . 76 Purchase of school buildings by the State ..... 78 Denominational buildings not national property . . . . 79 Meaning of ' National schools ' . . . . .80 CONTENTS vil PAQR The real issue 80 Bearing of Christian education on property and politics . . 82 Would Christian morality survive the ruin of dogmatic Chris- tianity? 83 Formal and material heresy compared with formal and material Christianity 84 The conduct of nations, not of individuals, the true test . . . 85 Education of the intellect alone tends to moral depravity, e.g. Greece and Rome . 85 Christianity alone arrested the ruin 88 Modern civilisation the creation of Christianity . . . . 89 Mr. Herbert Spencer's opinion . . . . . . .89 Undenominational education no remedy 90 Unstable attitude of Opposition leaders . . . . .91 The new Liberalism and the old 93 Examples ........... 94 Lord Rosebery's two Edinburgh speeches 95 Mr. Gladstone's Liverpool speech and Lord Rosebery's conse- quent resignation ......... 97 Mr. Gladstone's influence on foreign politics .... 101 Mr. Gladstone and the Corn tax 103 A great danger of the day 106 Kruger telegram and Fashoda incident 107 Difficulty of Gladstonian Liberals . . . . . . 108 THE EDUCATION QUESTION AND THE LIBERAL PARTY DEAR DR. GUINNESS EOGERS, When we met last month at the opening of St. Deiniol's Library at Hawarden you reminded me of a pleasant dinner-party at which we were both guests some years ago, at the house of the late lamented Mr. Clayden. I was the only Churchman present ; the rest were Noncon- formists of note belonging to various denomina- tions. ' Do you remember,' you asked me, ' that the main subject of conversation was the question of elementary education, and that you and I agreed, while the rest differed from us and from each other ? ' I remember it well, although it slipped my memory till you recalled it. It seemed to you then, as it has always done to me, that, in view of our unhappy divisions on matters of religion, the most logical and equitable solution of the question would be the taking over by the B 2 THE EDUCATION QUESTION Government, at a fair price, of all the Voluntary schools for the purpose of secular instruction, leaving to each denomination free access to all State schools for the purpose of teaching, under regulated conditions, their own specific doctrines to their own children. The necessary corollary of this would be the rigorous exclusion of religious instruction from the curriculum of State teaching. In the very able speech which he delivered lately at Birmingham, Mr. Chamberlain declared his own preference for that scheme, and seemed to imply that the Government had no insuperable objection to it, if only the state of public opinion had not precluded its possibility. Public opinion has ad- vanced in this matter since 1870, and I am not at all sure that, if the various alternatives were now fairly and clearly placed before the public, the balance of opinion would not be in favour of restricting the action of the State entirely to secular instruction, leaving the teaching of religion to the accredited representatives of the various Dr. Hook's denominations at fixed hours. The late Dean and Mr. Hook proposed a plan on those lines when he was stone's ap- Vicar of Leeds, and Mr. Gladstone was strongly in provai. favour of it, and much preferred it to the com- promise of 1870. It would obviously be impos- sible for the Government to propose any such scheme now, unless there was seen to be a plain preponderance of public opinion in its favour as an alternative to the Government scheme, which AND THE LIBERAL PARTY 3 professedly aims at placing for the first time Govern- under the control of the State the entire secular Seme, education given in primary and secondary schools receiving State aid throughout the country, with the exception of London, which is to be dealt with subsequently. The scheme, however, deals separately with the Voluntary schools. While undertaking to place the secular instruction given in those schools under the control of the State,, it also fulfils the provision in the Act of 1870 namely, that the religious instruction supplied in. the Voluntary schools should be safeguarded. The Act of 1870, let it be remembered, recognised the Voluntary schools as an integral part of a national system of education, and established Board schools as supplementary auxiliaries, not as hostile rivals, of the Voluntary schools. It was a compromise which aroused no enthu- Act of siasm either among Churchmen or Nonconformists. C eive