STATE EDUCATION: A HELP OR HINDRANCE? 597 



So does a national system of education. Does the one exalt the prin- 

 ciple of majorities over the individual conscience ? So does the other. 

 Does a national Church imply a distrust of the people, of their willing- 

 ness to make sacrifices, of their capacity to manage their own affairs ? 

 So does a national system of education. Does the one chill and repress 

 the higher meanings, and produce formalism ? So does the other. But 

 everywhere Nonconformists are being drawn into supporting the pres- 

 ent school system, into obtaining popular influence by means of it, and, 

 what is most inconsistent and undesirable, into using it as an instru- 

 ment for spreading their own religious teaching. It is rapidly becom- 

 ing their established Church, and it will have, we may safely predict, 

 the same narrowing effect upon their mind, it will beget the same in- 

 ability to perceive the injustice of a political advantage, which the 

 national Church has had upon its supporters. Such a result is matter 

 for much regret. First, because there is already but little steady ad- 

 herence to principle in politics ; and where a large body of influential 

 men put themselves in a position which is inconsistent with the appli- 

 cation of their own principles there is a sensible national deterioration. 

 Secondly, if school boards are to be instruments of authoritatively 

 teaching subjects of common dispute among us, such as the inspiration 

 of the Bible and the performance of miracles, the struggle between the 

 supporters of revealed religion and the different schools of free-thought 

 must be embittered. It is the question of political advantage and dis- 

 advantage which fans these disputes into red heat. Should this be the 

 case, much of the better side of the present religious teaching will be 

 lost sight of by a large part of the nation under the irritation of the 

 political injustice, and its influence lost at a moment when its influence 

 is especially wanted in shaping the new beliefs. 



It may be said that secular education will prevent such antagonism, 

 and that every year brings us nearer to the establishment of it. But 

 secular education, even if it be the most just arrangement of trying to 

 meet the injustice which a state system necessarily brings with it, is, 

 at best, a miserable expedient. It is as if everybody agreed by com- 

 mon contract to tie up his right hand in doing a special piece of 

 work in which he was most interested. Far healthier would it be 

 for each section in the nation, from the Catholic to the materialist, to 

 regain perfect freedom, and to do his best to place before children the 

 scheme of life as he himself sees and feels it. If the common argu- 

 ment, that such separate teaching will produce narrowness of mind and 

 sectarian jealousy, is to be regarded, it should be carried a step further, 

 and the children on Sundays should not be permitted to go to their 

 own churches and chapels, but the state should provide a universal 

 temple which ceremonies adapted for all. I confess, for my own part, 

 that I prefer to see intensity of conviction, even if joined with some 

 narrowness, to a state of moral and intellectual sleepiness, and children 

 waiting to be fed with such scanty crumbs as fall from official tables. 



