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 new effort was, in the last respect, as fruitless for the time as any which had preceded it, but it was, nevertheless, an important step in a liberal direction. It was clear to the ablest men amongst all parties that a State system was inevitable—the always harrassing and perplexing question was, what relations it should have to the religious opinions of the country. There were trusted leaders amongst the Church party who did not despair of finding a solution which would give to the Church every opportunity it required, without doing injustice to Dissenters, and many of the most distinguished of the Nonconformists were prepared to unite with the Church in support of such a scheme. The Irish system was taken as the basis. Dr. Hook, the vicar of Leeds, who was supposed to have the confidence of the High Church party, issued a pamphlet in 1846, in the form of a letter to the Bishop of St. David's, in which he put forward the plan of separating religious and secular teaching; excluding the former from the School, and throwing the cost of secular instruction upon the rates, and placing it under local management. Provision was to be made for religious teaching by clergymen and ministers at separate hours. This plan was advanced by Dr. Hook, not in any way as a concession of the claims of the Church—but rather as the only way in which they could be upheld, without doing injustice to other denominations, and at the same time securing education. His opinions were far in advance of those of his contemporaries in the Church--he was preeminently a man of just and comprehensive views—but he was an unbending and uncompromising Churchman, and he had not the smallest idea of sacrificing religious education; or even Church education, so far as the last could be promoted on principles of justice. Sir James Kay Shuttleworth has described him as desiring to relinquish on the part of the Church any desire for predominance, as seeking to place it on the same level with Dissenting bodies, and as foregoing his preference for religious education. (1) Such however were not his own pleas. It was his ardent desire to preserve Church education intact in principle, which led him to the adoption of the Irish system. He foresaw that if education were given by the State, it must stand in one of two relations to religion; either the education given must be purely secular, or the religious tone would become entirely colourless; or as he expressed it "semi-religious." The key to all his action in the matter is found in the three principles which are expressed in his speeches and writings-viz., Education must be had. The religious education given by the Church must be on strictly Church principles. The religious education given must be consistent with justice to Dissenters. From the earliest agitation of the question Dr. Hook took the greatest interest in it. Before the formation of the Committee of Council he had proposed an Education Board for Leeds, more liberal in its constitution than any subsequent proposal of either Whig or Conservative Governments. (2) His contention always was, secular education by the Statereligious education by the denominations, on fair terms for all. 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." (4) 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. * Ibid, 264. "I do really think that the Church might keep the whole of the education of the people, or nearly so, in her own hands." But this was to be done on just principles. "All that is wanted is money; we require funds. If the thing is desirable why may not the Bishops with the Clergy of England tax themselves fifty per cent., aye if need should be, a hundred per cent, and become beggars, rather than permit the education of the people to pass out of their hands?" "But there is not sufficient piety in the Church at present to act thus, or to make such a sacrifice as this: or rather there is the monstrous notion that our Bishops and clergy are to demand all the money they require, whether for education or Church extension, of the State. The State is to supply the funds, and the Bishops and clergy to expend those funds as they think fit. I call this a monstrous notion in a free State where there is full toleration, and where the taxes are paid by Dissenters as well as by Churchmen. If the Church supplies the funds, let the education be an exclusively Church education; if the State supplies the funds, the State is in duty bound to regard the just claims of Dissenters." (1) These expressions were the preliminary to his letter to the Bishop of St. David's, “How to render more efficient the education of the people." The scheme has been described as bold and original. (2) Bold it was and generous in principle as proceeding from a Church clergyman, but it had no title to originality. It was merely an adaptation of the Irish system. Secular instruction only was to be given by the State Children were to be required to produce certificates of attendance at a Sunday school. Class rooms were to be attached to the schools, in which the clergy and the dissenting ministers were to be allowed to give religious instruction at separate hours. "I do not ask," he wrote, "whether such an arrangement would be preferred to any other by either party, 1 Life of Dean Hook, 347. 2 Ibid, 262. for each party would prefer having everything its own way; but I do ask whether there would be any violation of principle on either side? I ask whether, for the sake of a great national object, there ought not to be a sacrifice, not of principle, but of prejudice, on either side.” (1) The pamphlet caused a sensation for a time. The High Church party regarded it with amazement as a surrender and betrayal. The National Society took offence at the strictures upon its work. The clergy were angry at the contemptuous criticism of the religious instruction given in Church schools, and the Voluntaryists, whose agitation was then at its height, were of course hostile to the scheme. It was a great honour to Dr. Hook's just and liberal suggestions that all the prevailing and established, blind and narrow incompetencies should oppose them. A new combination in support of secular education had its rise about the same time in Manchester. Mr. Cobden had finished the task of the Anti-Corn Law League, and was already turning his thoughts in other directions. In August, 1846, he wrote to Mr. Combe, that he was in hopes he should be able to co-operate efficiently with the best and most active spirits of the day in the work of moral and intellectual education. (2) In July, 1847, a Committee was formed in Manchester for the establishment of a national system. The first intention was to show how it might be worked out in Lancashire. An address was issued to the county called "A plan for the establishment of a general system of secular education in the county of Lancaster." The movement originated with Mr. Samuel Lucas, Mr. Jacob Bright, Professor Hodgson, Mr. Alexander Ireland, Mr. Geo. Wilson, and the Rev. W. McKerrow. The programme put forward by the Committee led to the formation of the Lancashire Public School Association, which a year or two later was converted into 1 Life of Dean Hook, 405. 2 Life of Combe, 219. |