of the religious communities; much less that the constitution of the new schools should exclude all distinctive religious instruction. (1)

The attack on the plan of the National School Association was nominally directed against its alleged irreligious character. The fear of a representative system which should make education national, rather than sectarian, was in fact the root of the hostility. The fight at this time was not so much respecting details, as upon the principle of management. On the one side the Church, the Wesleyans, the Voluntaryists, and the Roman Catholics were contending for the management by the church or congregation—on the other hand, those who looked to education for political and social advantages were striving to secure local representation. The great service rendered by the National Public School Association was in popularising and extending the doctrine of Government by the people in matters of education. It was in no sense an Association hostile to religion. Almost without exception its members were connected with religious congregations. Nothing is wider from the truth, than that elementary education has ever been made the instrument of an attack on the religious institutions of the country. The men who have cared least about religion are those who have offered the fewest impediments to the acceptance of any plan, denominational or otherwise, which promised to embrace the whole communityand they have never been guilty of the selfishness of attempting to propagate even a negative creed at the expense of the community. The efforts for the separation of schools from the control of the religious communions, were partly owing no doubt to the growth of the municipal sentiment; but they had their origin in the differences which arose amongst the sects, and which wholly prevented any advance. The resistance on the part of the Church, the Roman Catholics 1 Public Education, 36.

and exclusive educationists to a rate supported and representative system, arose from their repugnance to allow the direction of education to pass out of their own hands. But they made religion their shibboleth and attacked the National Association as being animated by a spirit of direct antagonism to the spread of religious opinions. So far was this hostility carried that where their influence prevailed, books and magazines which advocated the scheme were excluded from public libraries.

Several bills were introduced or supported under the auspices of the Association. They were not in all particulars alike, but in each of them a provision was made for moral teaching, and for affording the ministers of denominations opportunities of giving religious instruction to children of their own persuasion. The clauses required that there should be "sedulously inculcated—a strict regard to truth, justice, kindness, and forbearance in our intercourse with our fellowcreatures; temperance, industry, frugality, and all other virtues conducive to the right ordering of practical conduct in the affairs of life." "Nothing shall be taught in any of the schools which favours the peculiar tenets of any sect of Christians. No minister of religion shall be capable of holding any salaried office in connection with the schools." "The school committee shall set apart hours in every week, during which the schools shall be closed, for the purpose of affording an opportunity to the scholars, to attend the instruction of the teachers of religion in the various churches or chapels or other suitable places. No compulsion shall be used to enforce attendance, nor shall any penalty or disability whatever be imposed for non-attendance on such religious instruction." (1) Provisions were also contained for converting existing schools into free schools, and admitting them to the benefit of the rates, without disturbing their manPublic Education, 39.

1 Shuttleworth.

any

agement, but on the condition of the acceptance of a timetable conscience clause. The terms of the clause were as follows:-" And be it enacted, that the inculcation of doctrinal religion, or sectarian opinions shall not take place in such schools, at any time on any week day, between the hours of... and... in the morning, and ... and ... in the afternoon; and that no manager, trustee, or other person shall be deemed to have committed a breach of trust, or be in any way liable to any suit or proceeding, by reason of the omission to inculcate on the scholars, during the hours appointed, doctrinal religion or sectarian opinions; and no scholar who receives secular instruction at any such school, shall be compelled to attend the school at other times than those mentioned, or whilst doctrinal religion or sectarian opinions shall be inculcated; and no part of the payment to be made to the managers of any such school shall be in any way applied, for the purpose of inculcating doctrinal religion or sectarian opinions." As a matter of fact therefore the National Association offered to the denominations the terms imposed by the Act of 1870-but so influential was the opposition to its plans that Sir James Kay Shuttleworth predicted that its advocates were destined to be absorbed in other parties or cease to exist. "No hope could be entertained of the acquiescence of the religious communions in the school rate, unless the constitution of the school, as respects its management, continue unchanged, and, whatever securities were given to the rights of conscience, unless the peculiarities of its religious discipline and instruction were left without interference." (1)

In the results, and regarding these efforts and agitations from our present educational status, these predictions have been wholly falsified; and the disingenuous and mischiefmaking war-cry “religion in danger" has wholly failed in

1 Public Education, 43.

its scare. National progress has left comparatively but a modicum of bigotry and superstition to work upon, and in natural and inevitable sequence, the prophet has been ignored, and the priest (of every sect) is being by degrees relegated to his proper position.

The Manchester and Salford Committee on Education was formed to oppose the National Association, and was started under the auspices of Sir James Kay Shuttleworth, who set himself resolutely against education as a political object, resting on other than religious grounds. All the influence which he could exert over the Administrations under which he served was used to cement the union between education and the denominations. He wrote to the Secretary of the National Association "No evidence has transpired that, as a political object, the education, in daily schools, of the great masses of our fellow-countymen supported by manual labour, had received any important impulse from the efforts of any political class in this country; whereas, the various religious bodies have made large sacrifices for the support of daily schools; the Church alone claiming to have provided the rudiments of instruction for about a million of children.”

It was useless to argue with the Secretary of the Committee of Council on this subject. He could not be made to see that it was the working out of the democratic principle which gave the impulse to education, and he could not, or would not acknowledge that the objects of the Church, in keeping its control of the question, were as much political as religious, aiming at the preservation of dignities and revenues depending on a political alliance. All that came before him were the Government returns. By these, his views, not constitutionally large, could hardly be developed. His Department insisted that religion should be the basis of the assistance it administered, and a certain number of schools was provided by each of the sects which

was permitted to compete. Beyond this he did not see. He described the new scheme of the Manchester and

Salford Committee as one on a religious basis, under the guidance of ministers and communicants; the elders, class leaders, and deacons of the Church and congregations." The new association proposed to raise funds by means of local rates-not to be applied exclusively for secular instruction. The management of the schools and the appointment and dismissal of teachers were confided to the Church or congregation, by which the school was erected. The foundation of the scheme in theory was, that all denominations should be treated impartially, though an attempt was made to impose the Protestant version of the Bible on the Roman Catholics. It was a scheme of concurrent endowment, and was supposed, on good reason, to express the sentiments of the Government of the day. Though dealing with local rates, it was not founded on any representative principle. The ratepayers were offered no control over school management. The Town Council was to collect a rate and pay it to the managers of the denominational schools. Where a deficiency of accommodation existed, the religious bodies were to have the option of supplying it in the first place, and only upon their neglect was the municipality empowered to build schools. No provisions were made to secure responsibility for the administration of public funds. On the Committee there were members of all the religious denominations, including the Roman Catholics. The harmony of this heterogeneous body was of short duration-the Roman Catholic members, who represented 100,000 of the population of the city, withdrawing on a dispute as to the use of the authorised version of the Bible.

There was yet another society in the field, the "Yorkshire Society for Promoting National Education," the secretary of which addressed a letter to Mr. Cobden on the rise and