were literally nowhere. The League put out its placards, recommending the few secularist candidates; the Liberal papers raised the cry of Sectarianism,' professed to regard the contest as one between progress and retrogression, and in some places sought to enforce a practical disqualification against the clergy. But it was all in vain; their favourites were rejected everywhere. It was significant (for example) that in London hardly a single candidate ventured to come forward on a purely secularist platform, and the practical desires and resolutions of the successful candidates were most unmistakably pronounced; in fact, so unmistakably that the most honest and clear-sighted of the opponents of the decision have now accepted it as an accomplished fact. Nor was this all. It is remarkable that, in a great number of cases, the men chosen to administer the new system are those who have worked under the old, and who avow their desire to see the existing schools maintained. The Church, as usual, was hardly conscious of her strength. No doubt, Churchmen might have carried more candidates had they known it; but, even as it is, her representation is very considerable in numbers, and perhaps even more so in respect of influence. The clergy, who were at first ordered by foes, and even advised by friends, not to risk qandidature, have been elected freely; and simply from greater knowledge and higher education have gained in many cases a leading position on the Boards. Everything confirms the indications already noticed of public opinion on the matter. We might, perhaps, have anticipated the decision; but we did not anticipate the exceeding clear ness and even enthusiasm with which it has been pronounced.

parents, or ratepayers of the district-was brought forward as soon as the Board settled down to its work. It led to a singularly interesting debate, conducted with hardly a trace of animosity, and opening up all the various aspects of the subject; but the result never was doubtful, even for a moment. An amendment of the Rev. W. Rogers, urging the Board not to commit itself to any resolution' on the subject, found no seconder. The next, by Mr. Chatfield Clarke, proposing to leave all religious instruction to voluntary zeal and effor, although it brandished the flag of religious equality and conscientious conviction, and invoked the hatred of denominationalism, was defeated by 37 votes to 4. The proposal of the Rev. B. Waugh, to

read the Bible without religious note or comment,' fared even worse, and only mustered 3 votes against 41. And at last the original motion was carried by 38 votes against 3, and would have secured a larger majority, had not the rejection of an amendment for granting special privileges to Roman Catholicism led the Roman Catholic members to abstain from voting. It is hardly neces sary to add anything to the eloquence of these figures; but the debate itself was singularly instructive, and especially so in respect of a speech by Professor Huxley, who, although somewhat patronizing in his tone towards established creeds, was very emphatic in his conviction that some form of religion and morality was essential to true education, and honest (and even generous) in his acknowledgement of what religious, influence had already done in the great work. The above is but a specimen of the general tone of proceeding. There can be no question that the School Boards generally will seriously and earnestly endeavour to imbue their educational system with a really religious spirit. There may, perhaps, be a few secular schools, as there are a few now (e.g., those on the Birkbeck system); but they will be few and far between, unless there should occur any fatal difficulty in the working of an

Nor have the proceedings of the Boards so elected been in any way inconsistent with the public feeling which determined their constitution. The resolution to maintain religious education substantially and effectively, and to put to flight all the theoretical difficulties by determined practical attempts,undenominational' scheme. has been repeatedly shown. Take the case only of the London School Board. The proposal that the Bible shall be read, and there shall be given therefrom such explanations and such instructions in the principles of religion and morality as are suitable to the capacities of children'-allowing for cases of exception, but throwing in such cases the onus probandi on the managers,

The use of the ballot and the cumulative

vote introduced unknown and unprecedented elements into the contest, which defied all calculations, and produced the grandest possible results.

This historical retrospect is full both of interest and instruction. It seems to us conclusively to prove two things: first, that religious education, and consequently religion itself, are about to pass into a new phase, bringing with it great trials and fraught with very important consequences; and next, that, even under these circumstances, the vitality of the religious spirit has shown itself most signally and most hopefully.

and it forms a new era in the relation of
The novelty of the position is undoubted,
Church and State, considered in its widest
It is, we suppose, an almost undoubt-

sense.

ed truth that this relation has, since Church | to recognise religious instruction in the Establishment became an accomplished fact, schools; the local communities may at any passed at least in this country-through time take the same course, although they rethree stages. The first is that in which the fuse to do so now, without any inconsistency Church and State are considered as identical or absurdity. It follows, therefore, that the in composition; the former including all the religious teachers of our new schools will be inhabitants of the country in their spiritual forced to rely simply on their own individual character, and the latter the same persons in Christianity; every man will have to 'fight their temporal relations. The next is that in for his own hand' in the spiritual warfare; which the State is considered as distinct from and the great masses, hitherto more or less the Church, but yet acknowledges the Church closely organized and disciplined, will be alone as the representative of all religious broken up into a cloud of isolated combapowers and privileges in the country. The tants. Nor will the loss be limited to this. third is that which recognises many religious There is a great influence by which a Church bodies, each having its own organization and tells from without upon a school connected rights, conceding only a primacy, more or with it, not only by its authority, but also by less defined, to the Established Church. the sympathy, aid, and direction, which the With all these aspects, the education of the very fact of its connexion brings out, and country had, at different times, been con- which, in country districts especially, have nected; and recently it had passed into the done so much to invigorate and exalt the last phase, giving a very shadowy primacy, character of our existing schools. All this if any, to the Establishment, and beginning will be lost, and we see nothing to supply its also to introduce the principle of acknow- place; it will be hard to get up any enthuledging a religious teaching distinct from all siasm for a school, which is created and special religious bodies, although practically maintained by the unattractive and unsymthe working out of that principle was some- pathizing power of mere law. what exceptional.* Now, it will be observed, by the enactment of the Cowper-Temple clause, the State has established as a general rule what before it did but recognise exceptionally. It has inaugurated a national system of religious teaching, wholly dissociated in theory from any special religious body and its distinctive formularies. The Act implies the belief, to which the country has assented, that such a system of religious teaching is possible. It is clear that, if this belief be realized, it will exercise a most important influence over the status of religious bodies, and so on the great relation of the State to the Church or to the Church and the Sects. But into this we do not intend to enter. We confine ourselves to the strictly educational aspect of the question; and in respect to this we wish to point out the entirely new circumstances under which the religious principle will have to work.

Its teaching and its teachers will be, to a great degree, deprived of the support and the authority which a Church, as an organized religious body, can always give. So far as they are commissioned they will be the officials of the State, or of the rate-paying community, considered as a portion of the State; and the State, as such, is being led, perhaps being forced, to assume more and more of a secular basis. The central authority does this absolutely by refusing even

* Every one knows the immense preponderance of denominational (i.e., generally Church) schools under the old system.

But, of course, these difficulties are but slight compared with the difficulty introduced by the attempt to be 'undenominational,' an attempt jealously watched by a small but acute party, who are most anxious to make it fail as a religious system, and glide down the smooth incline into the lower depth of secularism. The very principle is conceived of in two wholly different lights. One class interprets it as an undertaking to teach nothing of which any denomination can disapprove, giving practically to the most insignificant minority a power of veto, which a large acquiescing majority would be wholly unable to overrule. Remembering the marvellous diversity of bodies even calling themselves Christians, from the Ultramontane Romanist to the broadest Unitarian, remembering also that Jews or Mahometans are a denomination in the view of the Act, remembering that it might be the policy of secularists to water down the religious teaching by captious objections, instead of refusing it under the Conscience Clause, it is not difficult to show (and it has been shown repeatedly), that by the application of the process of exhaustion, such interpretation is gradually destructive of all reli.

It is not even allowed to count as schoolattendance under the New Code, although even to music and drill that privilege is conceded. Considering even the intellectual difficulty and value of such instruction, so jealous an exclusion of it from the cognisance of the Government savours a little of that working a principle to death, of which only mere doctrinaires are usually guilty.

เ

of religious teaching must have felt how infinitely greater and deeper than all denominational' doctrines is the ground of a common Christianity. But it is very important that those who care for religious education should understand that, if the main battle is won, success has not been gained without much sacrifice, and that on their watchfulness, their sympathy, and their self-devotion at the present time, the extent and value of the victory will depend. We have already said that very much will turn upon the continued ex

gious instruction whatever. Now nothing is more certain than that the inventor of the Cowper-Temple Clause, and the Prime Minister, who accepted it and so gave it a chance of becoming law, utterly refused this interpretation. Their intention was simply to provide that the schools should not be ticketed' as belonging to this denomination or that. They believed that, although it is impossible to draw out an undenominational creed, which even all Christians would accept, yet that there is a vast amount of common belief and teaching in the various sys-istence of the old schools, in which religious tems, which include the great mass of the community, and acknowledge a common Bible, and that by a process of Natural Selection' this will hold the leading place in all religious instruction which is not avowedly designed for proselytism or controversy. Extreme opinions, they thought, must be left to the protection of the Conscience Clause and its power of withdrawal; and so the right at once of the minority and the (often forgotten) majority would be preserved. This is really the view which has been accepted by the country and the School Board generally. But a moment's thought will show that, like most of our English institutions, stamped with the marks of legislative compromise, it is a rough commonsense way of treating the question, which is easily open to attack from the adherents of more rigidly logical systems, and which depends wholly for its continued existence on the support of public opinion. We trust and we believe that it will be made to work. But it is obvious that under it religious teaching must be carried on under certain restraints; its shackles may be heavy or light according to circumstances, but in no case can they be wholly unfelt.

We have not dwelt upon these new conditions and new difficulties of religious instruction, because we think them likely to be fatal. On the contrary, we fully believe that the strong and almost vehement energy of the religious spirit so signally manifested through the whole of the Education question, will prove itself able to do what as yet it has always done to adapt itself to new institutions, or adapt those institutions to itself, to gain even freshness and originality from the imposition of novel conditions, and perhaps to learn some of the lessons which those conditions imply. Is it too much to hope that if the experiment of a common religious teaching succeeds in our schools, it may do something to draw together elsewhere, to unity of feeling, if not unity of Church constitution, those who are now far too much divided in the face of a common enemy? All who have had to maintain the principle

teaching has a larger and a more unfettered opportunity; yet to sustain these will be specially difficult; rates and subscriptions are not naturally coexistent, and from mere ignorance many may fancy that all can be thrown on the new system. It must be the business of the leaders of religious opinion to show that there is a special call for liberality and self-sacrifice here. Then again, it is certain that some means must be taken to supply that inspection in religious knowledge, which the Education Department relinquishes, but for which the Act leaves room. (Section lxxvi.) The injury done by this deliberate ignoring of the subject by the central authority and its separation from all others cannot be undone, but it may be compensated for by more thorough inspection, perhaps by greater reverence and earnestness of tone therein. We are glad to see that all religious bodies, and the Church of England especially, are alive to this need., Again, it is obvious that every exertion should be made to supply teachers, who shall be men and women of religious spirit and conviction. The Training Colleges, especially since they have been injured by the short-sighted economy of the old Revised Code, may probably be insufficient in number. It would be better to spend money in creating one new training college of religious education, than in erecting a score of new elementary schools. But, over and above these things, what is to be desired is that all who care for religious education should bring to bear on the future those subtle and powerful influences of sympathy and of opinion which give life to all practical agencies. So alone can School Boards, managers, and teachers be at once encouraged and restrained; so alone can the Education Department, now both liberally and honestly guided, be kept from reverting to some of the evil traditions of the past. The religious fortress has defied all attempts to storm it; let its defenders beware lest it be undermined in detail, and keep a bold and united front to the enemy, 'ne dum singuli pugnent, universi vincantur.'

III. The last, and in some sense the most

interesting, question, still remains. What | larger schools will share the same fate. Evidently therefore the area, which the new schools must cover is very large; the necessity of covering it, even if it stood alone, would have fully justified the introduction. of a new State agency to supply these inevitable but fatal defects in the old. The London School Board, we are glad to see, is already, in anticipation of the inquiries going on, selecting certain neglected spots, on which it may erect the first of its many schools.

c. Systematized object lessons, embracing in the course of the six school years, instruc tion in all the elementary conceptions of physical science, and serving as an introduction to the science examinations which are conducted by the Science and Art Department.

d. The History of England.
e. Elementary Geography.
f. Elementary Social Economy.

g. Elementary drawing, leading up to the examinations in mechanical drawing and to the art teaching of the Science and Art De

h. In Girls' School, plain needlework and cutting out.

And it even allows aspiring managers to add at their discretion (which we hope will be tempered by prudence)

a. Algebra and Geometry.

seemed to be economy; a certain efficiency | principles of book-keeping in Senior Schools; of education, by 'payment for results' and and mensuration in Senior Boys' Schools. by rigid enforcement of the 'Three R's,' was contemplated, but only as a secondary matter. But whatever was the object, the effect is certain. It has been seriously to discourage elementary schoolmasters, causing many to leave and fewer to enter the profession, to diminish the supply of pupil-teachers, to close some of the training schools, and decidedly to lower the standard of education, and grind out its loveliness and spirit. At last, in this, as in other cases, the Government has come to see that the economy effected was a wretchedly false economy, which will have to be made up for at far greater costpartment. than it saved; that the passing large numbers of children in the elementary subjects, however good in itself, may be dearly purchased by the sacrifice of the higher elements of education; and that it is hardly a wise policy on the part of the Education Department to discourage and snub the schoolmanagers and teachers, on whose willingness and enthusiasm so much depends. The New Code of 1871 is evidently designed to retrace some of these steps. It promises more liberal grants, in fulfilment of a promise made by Mr. Gladstone in the House; it wisely offers under certain circumstances certificates to teachers of known experience and excellence without examination; and it desires to give a premium for the study of higher subjects. It is perhaps doubtful whether the arrangements of the Code are so contrived as to effect this last most desirable purpose; some authorities contend that the maximum of grant will be reached in efficient schools without touching the higher subjects at all. But the recognition of this principle is the all important matter; if there is the will to encourage larger views of instruction, the way will soon be found. We hail this change as a cheering indication that a more really liberal and enlightened spirit pervades in the Department.

The School Boards also seem inclined to do their part in the same spirit. As before, we will take the London Board and its operations as types of the rest. The first report of the Education Committee has just been presented by Professor Huxley, the Chairman, and there is no doubt that it will be substantially accepted by the Board. Its programme certainly does not err on the side of scantiness. It contemplates in the schools for children from seven upwards the following subjects:

a. Religion and Morality.

b. Reading, writing, and arithmetic; English Grammar and Composition, and the

b. The rudiments of Latin or a Modern Language.

It will be observed that the programme laid down recognises not only the ordinary training in language, writing, and arithmetic, but the rudiments of Physical Science and Art. And so including, however simply, the chief elements of education, it shows a distinct and determinate desire to make it something more than the mere mechanical grinding to which many have been inclined to confine it. It proposes, we should add, also to make physical exercise and drill a regular part of the work of its schools, so at least to sanction physical training, possibly to prepare for the military exigencies of the future.

We anticipate, of course, that certain people will hold up their hands in amazement, lament over the burden to be laid on the ratepayers, and declaim about over-education or smattering. Undoubtedly the programme must be worked carefully, and it will require good teachers to work it; all these subjects will not be taught to all children in a school, nor, we presume, is the recommendation to be made a law of the Medes and Persians without any dispensing power. But these considerations will not escape the Board; with due prudence and discrimination we believe that their general scheme can be carried out; and remembering that their action must evidently affect that of other Boards, and even of the voluntary schools, we think its adoption will mark an era in the educational history of the country.

There will be then a very decided and earnest attempt to raise our educational standard. Why should it not succeed! The capacity of the English mind is at least not