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 EDUCATION 661 Church of Ireland. These institutions provide training it is the custom to give careful scriptural teaching, tofor 380 students in the two years’ course, and for 217 in make the children familiar with Bible history, with the the course for one year. The total number of students life and teaching of the Founder of Christianity, with the who passed the final examination qualifying them for poetry and literature of the Old Testament, and with such recognition as teachers was in 1899, 159 men and 159 devotional or ethical parts of the Bible as are suited to the women. comprehension of children, it being understood that conThe Board does not provide or support secondary schools, troversial teaching on points on which the several Churches, but encouragement is furnished by the examinations and differ shall be wholly excluded. This comprehensive and certificates, with result fees, under the Irish Intermediate scriptural but unsectarian ideal has proved very acceptEducation Act of 1878. All schools, whether denomina- able to English people, and especially to parents. At tional or not, including those of the Christian Brothers, are this moment it prevails over a considerable and increasadmitted to participate in the distribution; and in 1890 ing majority of the schools aided and inspected by the the sum allocated under the Local Taxation Act made State. it possible to augment the result fees, and was placed at _ There is, however, nothing inconsistent between the the disposal of the Intermediate Education Board for that views of those who hold this third opinion and the recogpurpose. nition of the denominational principle within certain limits. In England the problem of national education has been Accordingly, the Act of 1870 leaves full liberty to the rendered more difficult, partly by the complete absence schools attached to the several Churches to give to their until 1846 of any national recognition of the scholars the distinctive dogmatic teaching to which the and Wales. necessify of public education, partly from the managers attach special importance, provided that the great variety of Churches and of theological secular instruction shall fill four-fifths of the day’s exercises,, beliefs in the nation, and partly from the practical isola- and shall be thoroughly efficient. On these conditions, tion of the Universities, the intermediate schools, and the which are verified and certified after examination by H.M.. public elementary schools from one another. Of these Inspectors, the State recognizes voluntary schools and difficulties, one which has given most concern and trouble to makes liberal grants for their maintenance. And in English statesmen has doubtless been that of determining consequence there is not a single religious body in the religious basis of national education. As one studies England or Scotland which does not, in so far as it is the history of thought and controversy in other countries concerned with elementary education, comply with the m regard to religious teaching, it is seen that there are regulations of the State and receive aid from it; nor is possible three sharply-defined forms of opinion on this there a remote corner in either country where the inhabitsubject:—(1) There are those who contend that the State ants are not within reach of a public elementary school being a secular institution, having no religious creed of its under Government inspection. own, and yet composed of persons of very different religious The particulars given in vol. vii. p. 679 of the Encyclobelief, ought to confine itself absolutely to secular in- pczdia Britannica (ninth edition) bring up the story of struction, and to leave the teaching of theology to the administrative changes to the date of 1877, and show several Churches. This is the principle on which the what was the constitution of the newly-formed School school systems of France and of the States of the American Boards and what were their powers. Mr Forster had Union are founded. (2) There are others who contend hesitated to make school attendance compulsory by thethat education is wholly incomplete without religion, that Act of 1870, but in Clause 36 of that Act he plainly conthe teaching of religion means the enforcement of a creed, templated such an early change in public opinion as that the proper exponents of a creed are the authorized would justify local bodies in enforcing attendance. Henceministers of religion, and hence that a system of national a later Act in 1876 enforced the duty of every parent education should be essentially denominational, and that to send his child to school between the ages of 5 and if the State helps or controls primary education at all, it 14, forbade employment under that age except to those should do so through the agency of the Churches and their who procured a labour certificate, and provided that ministers. Throughout all Europe the Roman Catholic indigent parents might claim from the guardians the Church has always insisted on this view, and has been un- payment of school fees. The same Act provided that the willing to entertain any proposals for a compromise. In grant payable to a school should not exceed the limit either some sections of the English Church the same belief exists, (a) of 17s. 6d. per scholar in average attendance, or (6) although to a much smaller extent. (3) There is another the total income derived from other sources than the grant. • and a large class of the friends of education who dread These limitations have since disappeared. In 1880 Mr the exclusion of the Bible and religious teaching from the Mundella s Act established direct and universal compulsion, common schools, but who do not desire to make such and empowered the local school authorities to enforce it. schools the propaganda for any particular sect. They In 1891 Sir W. Hart Dyke’s Act practically abolished the regard the reading of the Bible, with simple undogmatic payment of school fees, and thus threw upon the State explanation, as appropriate to the intellectual needs of child- the duty of compensating school managers for the loss of hood, and well suited for general adoption by Christian nearly two millions of annual revenue hitherto contributed parents, so long as full liberty is given to the minority to by parents. A subsequent Act in 1896, introduced by the withdraw their children from any religious instruction Vice-President, Sir John Gorst, provided a Special Aid which they may disapprove. This is the principle which Grant for the further relief of voluntary school managers. was adopted by the supporters of Joseph Lancaster, and In the year 1890, before these great changes were made, by the British and Foreign School Society in 1811, and the Government grants to elementary schools amounted torecognized in the Education Act of Mr Forster in 1870. <£3,326,177, the voluntary subscriptions to £758,670, the Clause 14 of that Act, generally known as the Cowper- local rates levied by School Boards to £1,320,487, and Temple Clause, enacts that “ in any school provided by a the contributions of parents in the form of fees toSchool Board, no religious catechism, or religious formulary £1,940,546. Later legislation during the administration which is distinctive of any particular denomination, shall of Lord Salisbury had the effect of altering materially be taught.” The School Boards are not bound to include the proportions in which the educational revenue is religion in their course of instruction. But in 83 per cent, provided. of the School Boards of England, including that of London, The whole of that revenue for the year 1899-1900