grants It could not be an originating department on account of its relations to different parties. The minutes adopted under one Government were subject to reversal under the next, and in more than one instance this actually occurred. Its power was immense, but it was only the power of a huge paymaster. It was popular with no party, unless it was the Low Church clergy, who were satisfied with the preponderating influence it placed in the hands of the Church. It was opposed by all who claimed the spiritual control of education-by the Voluntaryists, who objected any State intervention, by the Dissenters who were jealous of the Church and suspicious of its designs, and by earnest educationists who disbelieved in its methods and efficiency, and saw in it only a clog and hindrance to the cause they had at heart. But this very unpopularity kept the question. alive, and gave an impetus to popular movements for the establishment of a system on definite lines, subject neither to the servilities nor partialities of office, nor to the fluctuations of party politics. CHAPTER IV. PERIOD.—FROM THE FORMATION OF THE LANCASHIRE PUBLIC SCHOOL ASSOCIATION, 1847, TO THAT OF A NEW direction was given to the popular agitation for education by the formation of the Lancashire Public School Association, and by the advocacy which eminent Churchmen and Nonconformists were giving to a "combined" system. The apathy of the Government, the divisions amongst religious denominations, the distrust and suspicion caused by the policy of the Education Department, and above all the exclusiveness and narrowness of the voluntary societies, were leading educational reformers to look to independent sources for the solution of difficulties which had hitherto seemed to increase with every fresh effort to overcome them. The National Society clung with tenacity to its exclusive conditions, and the British and Foreign School Society was falling under the suspicion of being on its own lines, equally bigoted and sectarian. Roman Catholics, Jews and Unitarians were excluded from its Normal school, and it was complained that its day schools had a creed of their own as much as those of the National Society. Confidence in a system so administered, and governed at every point by party and sectarian interests was incompatible with any comprehensive consideration of the subject. Local government and a larger measure of local support were the two fundamental principles of the new agitation. With these it was attempted to reconcile religious differences, by looking for a common ground of opinion and action. The which required, the most grants. It could not be an originating depart... to unite Hook, the lence of the the form of put forward teaching; ving the cost ng it under e for religious parate hours. ..any way as a a. rather as the without doing the same time ar in advance of he was presive views-but Churchman, and religious education; Could be promoted Shuttleworth has the part of the seeking to place tem. hodies, and as foregoing ) Such however were ent desire to preserve iple, which led him to He foresaw that if State, it must stand in one of her the education given must be dous tone would become entirely ssed it "semi-religious." The key matter is found in the three principles in his speeches and writings—viz., had. The religious education given by the n strictly Church principles. The religious must be consistent with justice to Dissenters. he earliest agitation of the question Dr. Hook eatest interest in it. Before the formation of the e of Council he had proposed an Education Board 1, more liberal in its constitution than any subsequent l of either Whig or Conservative Governments. (2) contention always was, secular education by the Stateigious education by the denominations, on fair terms for 1. In a letter to Sir William Page Wood (the late Lord Hatherley) written in 1838, he said, "anything like a semireligious education I deprecate, but I have no objection to let the State train children to receive the religious education we are prepared to give." (3) In a speech at Leeds about the same time he said "It must be obvious that when a State undertakes the education of the people, it cannot make religion its basis. It may pretend to do so at first, but the State religion will be found on investigation to be no religion." (*) During the acrid controversies aroused by Sir James Graham's factory bill Dr. Hook wrote to Mr. Gladstone, 1 The School, &c., 69. 2 Life of Dean Hook, 262. 3 Ibid, 263. 4 Ibid, 264. grants. It could not be an originating department on account of its relations to different parties. The minutes adopted under one Government were subject to reversal under the next, and in more than one instance this actually occurred. Its power was immense, but it was only the power of a huge paymaster. It was popular with no party, unless it was the Low Church clergy, who were satisfied with the preponderating influence it placed in the hands of the Church. It was opposed by all who claimed the spiritual control of education-by the Voluntaryists, who objected to any State intervention, by the Dissenters who were jealous of the Church and suspicious of its designs, and by earnest educationists who disbelieved in its methods and efficiency, and saw in it only a clog and hindrance to the cause they had at heart. But this very unpopularity kept the question alive, and gave an impetus to popular movements for the establishment of a system on definite lines, subject neither to the servilities nor partialities of office, nor to the fluctuations of party politics. |