Chapter II: Part 2

But when men living in society once become aware that their welfare depends upon, two opposing tendencies of equal importance--the one restraining, the other encouraging, individual freedom--the question "What are the functions of Government?" is translated into another--namely, What ought we men, in our corporate capacity, to do, not only in the way of restraining that free individuality which is inconsistent with the existence of society, but in encouraging that free individuality which is essential to the evolution of the social organization? The formula which truly defines the function of Government must contain the solution of both the problems involved, and not merely of one of them.

Locke has furnished us with such a formula, in the noblest, and at the same time briefest, statement of the purpose of Government known to me:--

"THE END OF GOVERNMENT IS THE GOOD OF MANKIND."[1]

[Footnote 1: "Of Civil Government," § 229.]

But the good of mankind is not a something which is absolute and fixed for all men, whatever their capacities or state of civilization. Doubtless it is possible to imagine a true "Civitas Dei," in which every man's moral faculty shall be such as leads him to control all those desires which run counter to the good of mankind, and to cherish only those which conduce to the welfare of society; and in which every man's native intellect shall be sufficiently strong, and his culture sufficiently extensive, to enable him to know what he ought to do and to seek after. And, in that blessed State, police will be as much a superfluity as every other kind of government.

But the eye of man has not beheld that State, and is not likely to behold it for some time to come. What we do see, in fact, is that States are made up of a considerable number of the ignorant and foolish, a small proportion of genuine knaves, and a sprinkling of capable and honest men, by whose efforts the former are kept in a reasonable state of guidance, and the latter of repression. And, such being the case, I do not see how any limit whatever can be laid down as to the extent to which, under some circumstances, the action of Government may be rightfully carried.

Was our own Government wrong in suppressing Thuggee in India? If not, would it be wrong in putting down any enthusiast who attempted to set up the worship of Astarte in the Haymarket? Has the State no right to put a stop to gross and open violations of common decency? And if the State has, as I believe it has, a perfect right to do all these things, are we not bound to admit, with Locke, that it may have a right to interfere with "Popery" and "Atheism," if it be really true that the practical consequences of such beliefs con be proved to be injurious to civil society? The question where to draw the line between those things with which the State ought, and those with which it ought not, to interfere, then, is one which must be left to be decided separately for each individual case. The difficulty which meets the statesman is the same as that which meets us all in individual life, in which our abstract rights are generally clear enough, though it is frequently extremely hard to say at what point it is wise to cease our attempts to enforce them.

The notion that the social body should be organized in such a manner as to advance the welfare of its members, is as old as political thought; and the schemes of Plato, More, Robert Owen, St. Simon, Comte, and the modern socialists, bear witness that, in every age, men whose capacity is of no mean order, and whose desire to benefit their fellows has rarely been excelled, have been strongly, nay, enthusiastically, convinced that Government may attain its end--the good of the people--by some more effectual process than the very simple and easy one of putting its hands in its pockets, and letting them alone.

It may be, that all the schemes of social organization which have hitherto been propounded are impracticable follies. But if this be so, the fact proves, not that the idea which underlies them is worthless, but only that the science of politics is in a very rudimentary and imperfect state. Politics, as a science, is not older than astronomy; but though the subject-matter of the latter is vastly less complex than that of the former, the theory of the moon's motions is not quite settled yet.

Perhaps it may help us a little way towards getting clearer notions of what the State may and what it may not do, if, assuming the truth of Locke's maxim that "the end of Government is the good of mankind," we consider a little what the good, of mankind is.

I take it that the good of mankind means the attainment, by every man, of all the happiness which he can enjoy without diminishing the happiness of his fellow-men.[1]

[Footnote 1: "Hie est itaque finis ad quem tendo, talem scilicet Naturam acquirere, et ut multi mecum eam acquirant, conari hoc est de mea felicitate etiam operam dare, ut alii multi idem atque ego intelligant, ut eorum intellectus et cupiditas prorsus cum meo intellectu et cupiditate convenient: atque hoc fiat, necesse est tantum de Natura intelligere, quantum sufficit ad talem naturam acquirendam; deinde formare talem societatem qualis est desideranda, ut quam plurimi quam facillime et secure eo perveniant."--B. SPINOZA, _De Intellectus Emendatione Tractatus._]

If we inquire what kinds of happiness come under this definition, we find those derived from the sense of security or peace; from wealth, or commodity, obtained by commerce; from Art--whether it be architecture, sculpture, painting, music, or literature; from knowledge, or science; and, finally, from sympathy or friendship. No man is injured, but the contrary, by peace. No man is any the worse off because another acquires wealth by trade, or by the exercise of a profession; on the contrary, he cannot have acquired his wealth, except by benefiting others to the full extent of what they considered to be its value; and his wealth is no more than fairy gold if he does not go on benefiting others in the same way. A thousand men may enjoy the pleasure derived from a picture, a symphony, or a poem, without lessening the happiness of the most devoted connoisseur. The investigation of nature is an infinite pasture-ground, where all may graze, and where the more bite, the longer the grass grows, the sweeter is its flavour, and the more it nourishes. If I love a friend, it is no damage to me, but rather a pleasure, if all the world also love him and think of him as highly as I do.

It appears to be universally agreed, for the reasons already mentioned, that it is unnecessary and undesirable for the State to attempt to promote the acquisition of wealth by any direct interference with commerce. But there is no such agreement as to the further question whether the State may not promote the acquisition of wealth by indirect means. For example, may the State make a road, or build a harbour, when it is quite clear that by so doing it will open up a productive district, and thereby add enormously to the total wealth of the community? And if so, may the State, acting for the general good, take charge of the means of communication between its members, or of the postal and telegraph services? I have not yet met with any valid, argument against the propriety of the State doing what our Government does in this matter; except the assumption, which remains to be proved, that Government will manage these things worse than private enterprise would do. Nor is there any agreement upon the still more important question whether the State ought, or ought not, to regulate the distribution of wealth. If it ought not, then all legislation which regulates inheritance--the statute of Mortmain, and the like--is wrong in principle; and, when a rich man dies, we ought to return to the state of nature, and have a scramble for his property. If, on the other hand, the authority of the State is legitimately employed in regulating these matters, then it is an open question, to be decided entirely by evidence as to what tends to the highest good of the people, whether we keep our present laws, or whether we modify them. At present the State protects men in the possession and enjoyment of their property, and defines what that property is. The justification for its so doing is that its action promotes the good of the people. If it can be clearly proved that the abolition of property would tend still, more to promote the good of the people, the State will have the same justification for abolishing property that it now has for maintaining it.

Again, I suppose it is universally agreed that it would be useless and absurd for the State to attempt to promote friendship and sympathy between man and man directly. But I see no reason why, if it be otherwise expedient, the State may not do something towards that end indirectly. For example, I can conceive the existence of an Established Church which should be a blessing to the community. A Church in which, week by week, services should be devoted, not to the iteration of abstract propositions in theology, but to the setting before men's minds of an ideal of true, just, and pure living; a place in which those who are weary of the burden of daily cares, should find a moment's rest in the contemplation of the higher life which is possible for all, though attained by so few; a place in which the man of strife and of business should have time to think how small, after all, are the rewards he covets compared with peace and charity. Depend upon it, if such a Church existed, no one would seek to disestablish it.

Whatever the State may not do, however, it is universally agreed that it may take charge of the maintenance of internal and external peace. Even the strongest advocate of administrative nihilism admits that Government may prevent aggression of one man on another. But this implies the maintenance of an army and navy, as much as of a body of police; it implies a diplomatic as well as a detective force; and it implies, further, that the State, as a corporate whole, shall have distinct and definite views as to its wants, powers, and obligations.

For independent States stand in the same relation to one another as men in a state of nature, or unlimited freedom. Each endeavours to get all it can, until the inconvenience of the state of war suggests either the formation of those express contracts we call treaties, or mutual consent to those implied contracts which are expressed by international law. The moral rights of a State rest upon the same basis as those of an individual. If any number of States agree to observe a common set of international laws, they have, in fact, set up a sovereign authority or supra-national government, the end of which, like that of all governments, is the good of mankind; and the possession of as much freedom by each State, as is consistent with the attainment of that end. But there is this difference: that the government thus set up over nations is ideal, and has no concrete representative of the sovereign power; whence the only way of settling any dispute finally is to fight it out. Thus the supra-national society is continually in danger of returning to the state of nature, in which contracts are void; and the possibility of this contingency justifies a government in restricting the liberty of its subjects in many ways that would otherwise be unjustifiable.

Finally, with respect to the advancement of science and art. I have never yet had the good fortune to hear any valid reason alleged why that corporation of individuals we call the State may not do what voluntary effort fails in doing, either from want of intelligence or lack of will. And here it cannot be alleged that the action of the State is always hurtful. On the contrary, in every country in Europe, universities, public libraries, picture galleries, museums, and laboratories, have been established by the State, and have done infinite service to the intellectual and moral progress and the refinement of mankind.

A few days ago I received from one of the most eminent members of the Institut of France a pamphlet entitled "Pourquoi la France n'a pas trouvé d'hommes supérieurs au moment du péril." The writer, M. Pasteur, has no doubt that the cause of the astounding collapse of his countrymen is to be sought in the miserable neglect of the higher branches of culture, which has been one of the many disgraces of the Second Empire, if not of its predecessors.

"Au point où nous sommes arrivés de ce qu'on appelle la
_civilisation moderne_, la culture des sciences dans leur
expression la plus élevée est peut-être plus nécessaire encore
à l'état moral d'une nation qu'à sa prospérité materielle.

"Les grandes découvertes, les méditations de la pensée dans
les arts, dans les sciences et dans les lettres, en un mot les
travaux désintéresses de l'esprit dans tous les genres,
les centres d'enseignement propres à les faire connaître,
introduisent dans le corps social tout entier l'esprit
philosophique ou scientifique, cet esprit de discernement qui
soumet tout à une raison sévère, condamne l'ignorance,
dissipe les préjugés et les erreurs. Ils élèvent le niveau
intellectuel, le sentiment moral; par eux, l'idée divine
elle-même se répand et s'exalte.... Si, au moment du péril
suprême, la France n'a pas trouvé des hommes supérieurs pour
mettre en oeuvre ses ressources et le courage de ses enfants,
il faut l'attribuer, j'en ai la conviction, à ce que la France
EST désintéressée, depuis un demi-siècle, des grands travaux
de la pensée, particuliérement dans les sciences exactes."

Individually, I have no love for academies on the continental model, and still less for the system of decorating men of distinction in science, letters, or art, with orders and titles, or enriching them with sinecures. What men of science want is only a fair day's wages for more than a fair day's work; and most of us, I suspect, would be well content if, for our days and nights of unremitting toil, we could secure the pay which a first-class Treasury clerk earns without any obviously trying strain upon his faculties. The sole order of nobility which, in my judgment, becomes a philosopher, is that rank which he holds in the estimation of his fellow-workers, who are the only competent judges in such matters. Newton and Cuvier lowered themselves when the one accepted an idle knighthood, and the other became a baron of the empire. The great men who went to their graves as Michael Faraday and George Grote seem to me to have understood the dignity of knowledge better when they declined all such meretricious trappings.

But it is one thing for the State to appeal to the vanity and ambition which are to be found in philosophical as in other breasts, and another to offer men who desire to do the hardest of work for the most modest of tangible rewards, the means of making themselves useful to their age and generation. And this is just what the State does when it founds a public library or museum, or provides the means of scientific research by such grants of money as that administered by the Royal Society.

It is one thing, again, for the State to take all the higher education of the nation into its own hands; it is another to stimulate and to aid, while they are yet young and weak, local efforts to the same end. The Midland Institute, Owens College in Manchester, the newly instituted Science College in Newcastle, are all noble products of local energy and munificence. But the good they are doing is not local--the commonwealth, to its uttermost limits, shares in the benefits they confer; and I am at a loss to understand upon what principle of equity the State, which admits the principle of payment on results, refuses to give a fair equivalent for these benefits; or on what principle of justice the State, which admits the obligation of sharing the duty of primary education with a locality, denies the existence of that obligation when the higher education is in question.

To sum up: If the positive advancement of the peace, wealth, and the intellectual and moral development of its members, are objects which the Government, as the representative of the corporate authority of society, may justly strive after, in fulfilment of its end--the good of mankind; then it is clear that the Government may undertake to educate the people. For education promotes peace by teaching men the realities of life and the obligations which are involved in the very existence of society; it promotes intellectual development, not only by training the individual intellect, but by sifting out from the masses of ordinary or inferior capacities, those who are competent to increase the general welfare by occupying higher positions; and, lastly, it promotes morality and refinement, by teaching men to discipline themselves, and by leading them to see that the highest, as it is the only permanent, content is to be attained, not by grovelling in the rank and steaming valleys of sense, but by continual striving towards those high peaks, where, resting in eternal calm, reason discerns the undefined but bright ideal of the highest Good--"a cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night."

II.

THE SCHOOL BOARDS: WHAT THEY CAN DO, AND WHAT THEY MAY DO.

An electioneering manifesto would be out of place in the pages of this Review; but any suspicion that may arise in the mind of the reader that the following pages partake of that nature, will be dispelled, if he reflect that they cannot be published[1] until after the day on which the ratepayers of the metropolis will have decided which candidates for seats upon the Metropolitan School Board they will take, and which they will leave.

[Footnote 1: Notwithstanding Mr. Huxley's intentions, the Editor took upon himself, in what seemed to him to be the public interest, to send an extract from this article to the newspapers--before the day of the election of the School Board.--EDITOR of the _Contemporary Review_.]

As one of those candidates, I may be permitted to say, that I feel much in the frame of mind of the Irish bricklayer's labourer, who bet another that he could not carry him to the top of the ladder in his hod. The challenged hodman won his wager, but as the stakes were handed over, the challenger wistfully remarked, "I'd great hopes of falling at the third round from the top." And, in view of the work and the worry which awaits the members of the School Boards, I must confess to an occasional ungrateful hope that the friends who are toiling upwards with me in their hod, may, when they reach "the third round from the top," let me fall back into peace and quietness.

But whether fortune befriend me in this rough method, or not, I should like to submit to those of whom I am a potential, but of whom I may not be an actual, colleague, and to others who may be interested in this most important problem--how to get the Education Act to work efficiently--some considerations as to what are the duties of the members of the School Boards, and what are the limits of their power.

I suppose no one will be disposed to dispute the proposition, that the prime duty of every member of such a Board is to endeavour to administer the Act honestly; or in accordance, not only with its letter, but with its spirit. And if so, it would seem that the first step towards this very desirable end is, to obtain a clear notion of what that letter signifies, and what that spirit implies; or, in other words, what the clauses of the Act are intended to enjoin and to forbid. So that it is really not admissible, except for factious and abusive purposes, to assume that any one who endeavours to get at this clear meaning is desirous only of raising quibbles and making difficulties.

Reading the Act with this desire to understand it, I find that its provisions may be classified, as might naturally be expected, under two heads: the one set relating to the subject-matter of education; the other to the establishment, maintenance, and administration of the schools in which that education is to be conducted.

Now it is a most important circumstance, that all the sections of the Act, except four, belong to the latter division; that is, they refer to mere matters of administration. The four sections in question are the seventh, the fourteenth, the sixteenth, and the ninety-seventh. Of these, the seventh, the fourteenth, and the ninety-seventh deal with the subject-matter of education, while the sixteenth defines the nature of the relations which are to exist between the "Education Department" (an euphemism for the future Minister of Education) and the School Boards. It is the sixteenth clause which is the most important, and, in some respects, the most remarkable of all. It runs thus:--

"If the School Board do, or permit, any act in contravention
of, or fail to comply with, the regulations, according to
which a school provided by them is required by this Act to
be conducted, the Education Department may declare the School
Board to be, and such Board shall accordingly be deemed to be,
a Board in default, and the Education Department may proceed
accordingly; and every act, or omission, of any member of
the School Board, or manager appointed by them, or any
person under the control of the Board, shall be deemed to be
_permitted_ by the Board, unless the contrary be proved.

"If any dispute arises as to whether the School Board have
done, or permitted, any act in contravention of, or have
failed to comply with, the said regulations, _the matter
shall be referred to the Education Department, whose decision
thereon shall be final_."

It will be observed that this clause gives the Minister of Education absolute power over the doings of the School Boards. He is not only the administrator of the Act, but he is its interpreter. I had imagined that on the occurrence of a dispute, not as regards a question of pure administration, but as to the meaning of a clause of the Act, a case might be taken and referred to a court of justice. But I am led to believe that the Legislature has, in the present instance, deliberately taken this power out of the hands of the judges and lodged it in those of the Minister of Education, who, in accordance with our method of making Ministers, will necessarily be a political partisan, and who may be a strong theological sectary into the bargain. And I am informed by members of Parliament who watched the progress of the Act, that the responsibility for this unusual state of things rests, not with the Government, but with the Legislature, which exhibited a singular disposition to accumulate power in the hands of the future Minister of Education, and to evade the more troublesome difficulties of the education question by leaving them to be settled between that Minister and the School Boards.

I express no opinion whether it is, or is not, desirable that such powers of controlling all the School Boards in the country should be possessed by a person who may be, like Mr. Forster, eminently likely to use these powers justly and wisely, but who also may be quite the reverse. I merely wish to draw attention to the fact that such powers are given to the Minister, whether he be fit or unfit. The extent of these powers becomes apparent when the other sections of the Act referred to are considered. The fourth clause of the seventh section says:--

"The school shall be conducted in accordance with the
conditions required to be fulfilled by an elementary school in
order to obtain an annual Parliamentary grant."

What these conditions are appears from the following clauses of the ninety-seventh section:--

"The conditions required to be fulfilled by an elementary
school in order to obtain an annual Parliamentary grant shall
be those contained in the minutes of the Education Department
in force for the time being.... Provided that no such minute
of the Education Department, not in force at the time of the
passing of this Act, shall be deemed to be in force until
it has lain for not less than one month on the table of both
Houses of Parliament."

Let us consider how this will work in practice. A school established by a School Board may receive support from three sources--from the rates, the school fees, and the Parliamentary grant. The latter may be as great as the two former taken together; and as it may be assumed, without much risk of error, that a constant pressure will be exerted by the ratepayers on the members who represent them, to get as much out of the Government, and as little out of the rates, as possible, the School Boards will have a very strong motive for shaping the education they give, as nearly as may be, on the model which the Education Minister offers for their imitation, and for the copying of which he is prepared to pay.

The Revised Code did not compel any schoolmaster to leave off teaching anything; but, by the very simple process of refusing to pay for many kinds of teaching, it has practically put an end to them. Mr. Forster is said to be engaged in revising the Revised Code; a successor of his may re-revise it--and there will be no sort of check upon these revisions and counter-revisions, except the possibility of a Parliamentary debate, when the revised, or added, minutes are laid upon the table. What chance is there that any such debate will take place on a matter of detail relating to elementary education--a subject with which members of the Legislature, having been, for the most part, sent to our public schools thirty years ago, have not the least practical acquaintance, and for which they care nothing, unless it derives a political value from its connection with sectarian politics?

I cannot but think, then, that the School Boards will have the appearance, but not the reality, of freedom of action, in regard to the subject-matter of what is commonly called "secular" education.

As respects what is commonly called "religious" education, the power of the Minister of Education is even more despotic. An interest, almost amounting to pathos, attaches itself, in my mind, to the frantic exertions which are at present going on in almost every school division, to elect certain candidates whose names have never before been heard of in connection with education, and who are either sectarian partisans, or nothing. In my own particular division, a body organized _ad hoc_ is moving heaven and earth to get the seven seats filled by seven gentlemen, four of whom are good Churchmen, and three no less good Dissenters. But why should this seven times heated fiery furnace of theological zeal be so desirous to shed its genial warmth over the London School Board? Can it be that these zealous sectaries mean to evade the solemn pledge given in the Act?

"No religious catechism or religious formulary which is
distinctive of any particular denomination shall be taught in
the school."

I confess I should have thought it my duty to reject any such suggestion, as dishonouring to a number of worthy persons, if it had not been for a leading article and some correspondence which appeared in the _Guardian_ of November 9th, 1870.

The _Guardian_ is, as everybody knows, one of the best of the "religious" newspapers; and, personally. I have every reason to speak highly of the fairness, and indeed kindness, with which the editor is good enough to deal with a writer who must, in many ways, be so objectionable to him as myself. I quote the following passages from a leading article on a letter of mine, therefore, with all respect, and with a genuine conviction that the course of conduct advocated by the writer must appear to him in a very different light from that under which I see it:--

"The first of these points is the interpretation which
Professor Huxley puts on the 'Cowper-Temple clause.' It is,
in fact, that which we foretold some time ago as likely to be
forced upon it by those who think with him. The clause itself
was one of those compromises which it is very difficult to
define or to maintain logically. On the one side was the
simple freedom to School Boards to establish what schools they
pleased, which Mr. Forster originally gave, but against
which the Nonconformists lifted up their voices, because they
conceived it likely to give too much power to the Church. On
the other side there was the proposition to make the schools
secular--intelligible enough, but in the consideration of
public opinion simply impossible--and there was the vague
impracticable idea, which Mr. Gladstone thoroughly tore to
pieces, of enacting that the teaching of all schoolmasters
in the new schools should be strictly 'undenominational.' The
Cowper-Temple clause was, we repeat, proposed simply to tide
over the difficulty. It was to satisfy the Nonconformists and
the 'unsectarian,' as distinct from the secular party of
the League, by forbidding all distinctive 'catechisms and
formularies,' which might have the effect of openly assigning
the schools to this or that religious body. It refused, at the
same time, to attempt the impossible task of defining what
was undenominational; and its author even contended, if
we understood him correctly, that it would in no way, even
indirectly, interfere with the substantial teaching of any
master in any school. This assertion we always believed to be
untenable; we could not see how, in the face of this clause,
a distinctly denominational tone could be honestly given to
schools nominally general. But beyond this mere suggestion of
an attempt at a general tone of comprehensiveness in religious
teaching it was not intended to go, and only because such was
its limitation was it accepted by the Government and by the
House.

"But now we are told that it is to be construed as doing
precisely that which it refused to do. A 'formulary,' it
seems, is a collection of formulas, and formulas are simply
propositions of whatever kind touching religious faith. All
such propositions, if they cannot be accepted by all
Christian denominations, are to be proscribed; and it is added
significantly that the Jews also are a denomination, and so
that any teaching distinctively Christian is perhaps to be
excluded, lest it should interfere with their freedom and
rights. Are we then to fall back on the simple reading of
the letter of the Bible? No! this, it is granted, would be
an 'unworthy pretence.' The teacher is to give 'grammatical,
geographical, or historical explanations;' but he is to keep
clear of 'theology proper,' because, as Professor Huxley takes
great pains to prove, there is no theological teaching which
is not opposed by some sect or other, from Roman Catholicism
on the one hand to Unitarianism on the other. It was not,
perhaps, hard to see that this difficulty would be started;
and to those who, like Professor Huxley, look at it
theoretically, without much practical experience of schools,
it may appear serious or unanswerable. But there is very
little in it practically; when it is faced determinately and
handled firmly, it will soon shrink into its true
dimensions. The class who are least frightened at it are the
school-teachers, simply because they know most about it. It is
quite clear that the school-managers must be cautioned against
allowing their schools to be made places of proselytism:
but when this is done, the case is simple enough. Leave the
masters under this general understanding to teach freely; if
there is ground of complaint, let it be made, but leave the
_onus pro-bandi_ on the objectors. For extreme peculiarities
of belief or unbelief there is the Conscience Clause; as
to the mass of parents, they will be more anxious to have
religion taught than afraid of its assuming this or that
particular shade. They will trust the school-managers
and teachers till they have reason to distrust them, and
experience has shown that they may trust them safely enough.
Any attempt to throw the burden of making the teaching
undenominational upon the managers must be sternly resisted:
it is simply evading the intentions of the Act in an elaborate
attempt to carry them out. We thank Professor Huxley for the
warning. To be forewarned is to be forearmed."

A good deal of light seems to me to be thrown on the practical significance of the opinions expressed in the foregoing extract by the following interesting letter, which appeared in the same paper:--

"Sir,--I venture to send to you the substance of a
correspondence with the Education Department upon the question
of the lawfulness of religious teaching in rate schools under
section 14 (2) of the Act. I asked whether the words 'which
is distinctive,' &c., taken grammatically as limiting the
prohibition of any religious formulary, might be construed
as allowing (subject, however, to the other provisions of the
Act) any religious formulary common to any two denominations
anywhere in England to be taught in such schools; and if
practically the limit could not be so extended, but would have
to be fixed according to the special circumstances of each
district, then what degree of general acceptance in a district
would exempt such a formulary from the prohibition? The answer
to this was as follows:--'It was understood, when clause 14 of
the Education Act was discussed in the House of Commons,
that, according to a well-known rule of interpreting Acts
of Parliament, "denomination" must be held to include
"denominations." When any dispute is referred to the Education
Department under the last paragraph of section 16, it will be
dealt with according to the circumstances of the case.'

"Upon my asking further if I might hence infer that the
lawfulness of teaching any religious formulary in a rate
school would thus depend _exclusively_ on local circumstances,
and would accordingly be so decided by the Education
Department in case of dispute, I was informed in explanation
that 'their lordships'' letter was intended to convey to
me that no general rule, beyond that stated in the first
paragraph of their letter, could at present be laid down by
them; and that their decision in each particular case must
depend on the special circumstances accompanying it.

"I think it would appear from this that it may yet be in many
cases both lawful and expedient to teach religious formularies
in rate schools.

"H.I. Steyning, _November_ 5, 1870."

Of course I do not mean to suggest that the editor of the _Guardian_ is bound by the opinions of his correspondent; but I cannot help thinking that I do not misrepresent him, when I say that he also thinks "that it may yet be, in many cases, both lawful and expedient to teach religious formularies in rate schools under these circumstances."

It is not uncharitable, therefore, to assume that, the express words of the Act of Parliament notwithstanding, all the sectaries who are toiling so hard for seats in the London School Board have the lively hope of the gentleman from Steyning, that it may be "both lawful and expedient to teach religious formularies in rate schools;" and that they mean to do their utmost to bring this happy consummation about.[1]

[Footnote 1: A passage in an article on the "Working of the Education Act," in the _Saturday Review_ for Nov. 19, 1870, completely justifies this anticipation of the line of action which the sectaries mean to take. After commending the Liverpool compromise, the writer goes on to say:--

"If this plan is fairly adopted in Liverpool, the fourteenth clause of the Act will in effect be restored to its original form, and the majority of the ratepayers in each district be permitted to decide to what denomination the school shall belong."

In a previous paragraph the writer speaks of a possible "mistrust" of one another by the members of the Board, and seems to anticipate "accusations of dishonesty." If any of the members of the Board adopt his views, I think it highly probable that he may turn out to be a true prophet.]

Now the pathetic emotion to which I have referred, as accompanying my contemplations of the violent struggles of so many excellent persons, is caused by the circumstance that, so far as I can judge, their labour is in vain.

Supposing that the London School Board contains, as it probably will do, a majority of sectaries; and that they carry over the heads of a minority, a resolution that certain theological formulas, about which they all happen to agree,--say, for example, the doctrine of the Trinity,--shall be taught in the schools. Do they fondly imagine that the minority will not at once dispute their interpretation of the Act, and appeal to the Education Department to settle that dispute? And if so, do they suppose that any Minister of Education, who wants to keep his place, will tighten boundaries which the Legislature has left loose; and will give a "final decision" which shall be offensive to every Unitarian and to every Jew in the House of Commons, besides creating a precedent which will afterwards be used to the injury of every Nonconformist? The editor of the _Guardian_ tells his friends sternly to resist every attempt to throw the burden of making the teaching undenominational on the managers, and thanks me for the warning I have given him. I return the thanks, with interest, for _his_ warning, as to the course the party he represents intends to pursue, and for enabling me thus to draw public attention to a perfectly constitutional and effectual mode of checkmating them.

And, in truth, it is wonderful to note the surprising entanglement into which our able editor gets himself in the struggle between his native honesty and judgment and the necessities of his party. "We could not see," says he, "in the face of this clause how a distinct denominational tone could be honestly given to schools nominally general." There speaks the honest and clearheaded man. "Any attempt to throw the burden of making the teaching undenominational must be sternly resisted." There speaks the advocate holding a brief for his party. "Verily," as Trinculo says, "the monster hath two mouths:" the one, the forward mouth, tells us very justly that the teaching cannot "honestly" be "distinctly denominational;" but the other, the backward mouth, asserts that it must by no manner of means be "undenominational." Putting the two utterances together, I can only interpret them to mean that the teaching is to be "indistinctly denominational." If the editor of the _Guardian_ had not shown signs of anger at my use of the term "theological fog," I should have been tempted to suppose it must have been what he had in his mind, under the name of "indistinct denominationalism." But this reading being plainly inadmissible, I can only imagine that he inculcates the teaching of formulas common to a number of denominations.

But the Education Department has already told the gentleman from Steyning that any such proceeding will be illegal. "According to a well-known rule of interpreting Acts of Parliament, 'denomination' would be held to include 'denominations.'" In other words, we must read the Act thus:--

"No religious catechism or religious formulary which is distinctive of any particular _denominations_ shall be taught."

Thus we are really very much indebted to the editor of the _Guardian_ and his correspondent. The one has shown us that the sectaries mean to try to get as much denominational teaching as they can agree upon among themselves, forced into the elementary schools; while the other has obtained a formal declaration from the Education Department that any such attempt will contravene the Act of Parliament, and that, therefore, the unsectarian, law-abiding members of the School Boards may safely reckon upon, bringing down upon their opponents the heavy hand of the Minister of Education.[1]

[Footnote 1: Since this paragraph was written, Mr. Forster, in speaking at the Birkbeck Institution, has removed all doubt as to what his "final decision" will be in the case of such disputes being referred to him:--"I have the fullest confidence that in the reading and explaining of the Bible, what the children will be taught will be the great truths of Christian life and conduct, which all of us desire they should know, and that no effort will be made to cram into their poor little minds, theological dogmas which their tender age prevents them from understanding."]

So much for the powers of the School Boards. Limited as they seem to be, it by no means follows that such Boards, if they are composed of intelligent and practical men, really more in earnest about education than about sectarian squabbles, may not exert a very great amount of influence. And, from many circumstances, this is especially likely to be the case with the London School Board, which, if it conducts itself wisely, may become a true educational parliament, as subordinate in authority to the Minister of Education, theoretically, as the Legislature is to the Crown, and yet, like the Legislature, possessed of great practical authority. And I suppose that no Minister of Education would be other than glad to have the aid of the deliberations of such a body, or fail to pay careful attention to its recommendations.

What, then, ought to be the nature and scope of the education which a School Board should endeavour to give to every child under its influence, and for which it should try to obtain the aid of the Parliamentary grants? In my judgment it should include at least the following kinds of instruction and of discipline:--

1. Physical training and drill, as part of the regular business of the school.

It is impossible to insist too much on the importance of this part of education for the children of the poor of great towns. All the conditions of their lives are unfavourable to their physical well-being. They are badly lodged, badly housed, badly fed, and live from one year's end to another in bad air, without chance of a change. They have no play-grounds; they amuse themselves with marbles and chuck-farthing, instead of cricket or hare-and-hounds; and if it were not for the wonderful instinct which leads all poor children of tender years to run under the feet of cab-horses whenever they can, I know not how they would learn to use their limbs with agility.

Now there is no real difficulty about teaching drill and the simpler kinds of gymnastics. It is done admirably well, for example, in the North Surrey Union schools; and a year or two ago, when I had an opportunity of inspecting these schools, I was greatly struck with the effect of such training upon the poor little waifs and strays of humanity, mostly picked out of the gutter, who are being made into cleanly, healthy, and useful members of society in that excellent institution.

Whatever doubts people may entertain about the efficacy of natural selection, there can be none about artificial selection; and the breeder who should attempt to make, or keep up, a fine stock of pigs, or sheep, under the conditions to which the children of the poor are exposed, would be the laughing-stock even of the bucolic mind. Parliament has already done something in this direction, by declining to be an accomplice in the asphyxiation of school children. It refuses to make any grant to a school in which the cubical contents of the school-room are inadequate to allow of proper respiration. I should like to see it make another step in the same direction, and either refuse to give a grant to a school in which physical training is not a part of the programme, or, at any rate, offer to pay upon such training. If something of the kind is not done, the English physique, which has been, and is still, on the whole, a grand one, will become as extinct as the dodo, in the great towns.

And then the moral and intellectual effect of drill, as an introduction to, and aid of, all other sorts of training, must not be overlooked. If you want to break in a colt, surely the first thing to do is to catch him and get him quietly to face his trainer; to know his voice and bear his hand; to learn that colts have something else to do with their heels than to kick them up whenever they feel so inclined; and to discover that the dreadful human figure has no desire to devour, or even to beat him, but that, in case of attention and obedience, he may hope for patting and even a sieve of oats.

But, your "street Arabs," and other neglected poor children, are rather worse and wilder than colts; for the reason that the horse-colt has only his animal instincts in him, and his mother, the mare, has been always tender over him, and never came home drunk and kicked him in her life; while the man-colt is inspired by that very real devil, perverted manhood, and _his_ mother may have done all that and more. So, on the whole, it may probably be even more expedient to begin your attempt to get at the higher nature of the child, than at that of the colt, from the physical side.

2. Next in order to physical training I put the instruction of children, and especially of girls, in the elements of household work and of domestic economy; in the first place for their own sakes, and in the second for that of their future employers.

Everyone who knows anything of the life of the English poor is aware of the misery and waste caused by their want of knowledge of domestic economy, and by their lack of habits of frugality and method. I suppose it is no exaggeration to say that a poor Frenchwoman would make the money which the wife of a poor Englishman spends in food go twice as far, and at the same time turn out twice as palatable a dinner. Why Englishmen, who are so notoriously fond of good living, should be so helplessly incompetent in the art of cookery, is one of the great mysteries of nature; but from the varied abominations of the railway refreshment-rooms to the monotonous dinners of the poor, English feeding is either wasteful or nasty, or both.

And as to domestic service, the groans of the housewives of England ascend to heaven! In five cases out of six, the girl who takes a "place" has to be trained by her mistress in the first rudiments of decency and order; and it is a mercy if she does not turn up her nose at anything like the mention of an honest and proper economy. Thousands of young girls are said to starve, or worse, yearly in London; and at the same time thousands of mistresses of households are ready to pay high wages for a decent housemaid, or cook, or a fair workwoman; and can by no means get what they want.

Surely, if the elementary schools are worth anything, they may put an end to a state of things which is demoralizing the poor, while it is wasting the lives of those better off in small worries and annoyances.

3. But the boys and girls for whose education the School Boards have to provide, have not merely to discharge domestic duties, but each of them is a member of a social and political organization of great complexity, and has, in future life, to fit himself into that organization, or be crushed by it. To this end it is surely needful, not only that they should be made acquainted with the elementary laws of conduct, but that their affections should be trained, so as to love with all their hearts that conduct which tends to the attainment of the highest good for themselves and their fellow-men, and to hate with all their hearts that opposite course of action which is fraught with evil.

So far as the laws of conduct are determined by the intellect, I apprehend that they belong to science, and to that part of science which is called morality. But the engagement of the affections in favour of that particular kind of conduct which we call good, seems to me to be something quite beyond mere science. And I cannot but think that it, together with the awe and reverence, which have no kinship with base fear, but arise whenever one tries to pierce below the surface of things, whether they be material or spiritual, constitutes all that has any unchangeable reality in religion.

And just as I think it would, be a mistake to confound the science, morality, with the affection, religion; so do I conceive it to be a most lamentable and mischievous error, that the science, theology, is so confounded in the minds of many--indeed, I might say, of the majority of men.

I do not express any opinion as to whether theology is a true science, or whether it does not come under the apostolic definition of "science falsely so called;" though I may be permitted to express the belief that if the Apostle to whom that much misapplied phrase is due could make the acquaintance of much of modern theology, he would not hesitate a moment in declaring that it is exactly what he meant the words to denote.

But it is at any rate conceivable, that the nature of the Deity, and His relations to the universe, and more especially to mankind, are capable of being ascertained, either inductively or deductively, or by both processes. And, if they have been ascertained, then a body of science has been formed which is very properly called theology.

Further, there can be no doubt that affection for the Being thus defined and described by theologic science would be properly termed religion; but it would not be the whole of religion. The affection for the ethical ideal defined by moral science would claim equal if not superior rights. For suppose theology established the existence of an evil deity--and some theologies, even Christian ones, have come very near this,--is the religious affection to be transferred from the ethical ideal to any such omnipotent demon? I trow not. Better a thousand times that the human race should perish under his thunderbolts than it should say, "Evil, be thou my good."

There is nothing new, that I know of, in this statement of the relations of religion with the science of morality on the one hand and that of theology on the other. But I believe it to be altogether true, and very needful, at this time, to be clearly and emphatically recognized as such, by those who have to deal with the education question.

We are divided into two parties--the advocates of so-called "religious" teaching on the one hand, and those of so-called "secular" teaching on the other. And both parties seem to me to be not only hopelessly wrong, but in such a position that if either succeeded completely, it would discover, before many years were over, that it had made a great mistake and done serious evil to the cause of education.

For, leaving aside the more far-seeing minority on each side, what the "religious" party is crying for is mere theology, under the name of religion; while the "secularists" have unwisely and wrongfully admitted the assumption of their opponents, and demand the abolition of all "religious" teaching, when they only want to be free of theology--Burning your ship to get rid of the cockroaches!

But my belief is, that no human being, and no society composed of human beings, ever did, or ever will, come to much, unless their conduct was governed and guided by the love of some ethical ideal. Undoubtedly, your gutter child may be converted by mere intellectual drill into "the subtlest of all the beasts of the field;" but we know what has become of the original of that description, and there is no need to increase the number of those who imitate him successfully without being aided by the rates. And if I were compelled to choose for one of my own children, between a school in which real religious instruction is given, and one without it, I should prefer the former, even though the child might have to take a good deal of theology with it. Nine-tenths of a dose of bark is mere half-rotten wood; but one swallows it for the sake of the particles of quinine, the beneficial effect of which may be weakened, but is not destroyed, by the wooden dilution, unless in a few cases of exceptionally tender stomachs.