Review of Revieics, IjTJOG. 



Leading Articles. 



67 





Instead of settling the religious difficulty, Mr. Birrell 

 has, he says, made it the occasion of municipal strife 

 all over the kingdom. He fears that Protestant 

 municipalities will do scant justice to the Catholics, 

 and none at all to the Ritualists. Local option 

 should give way, he thinks, to the automatic action 

 of the national law. He does not regard undeno- 

 minationalism as the religion of Nonconformity. 

 " We might as reasonably make the teaching of Es- 

 peranto compulsory to the exclusion of richer lan- 

 guages as substitute undenominationalism for reli- 

 gion." Mr. Lathburys former specific of universal 

 facilities he now renounces. He says, " I have be- 

 come a convert to the secularisation of schools. I 

 will only say that, however much Churchmen may 

 dislike the secular solution, their success in resistinsr 

 the present Bill wall depend upon their willingness to 

 accept that solution in preference to the unde- 

 nominational solution." He closes by saying that 

 the progress of the Bill will determine whether 

 Churchmen or Nonconformists are most afraid of 

 secular schools. 



DR. MAOVAMARA. 



The raging and tearing lion of Lord Halifax's 

 imagination is represented by Dr. Macnamara as a 

 harmless necessary mouse. He says of the Bill : — ■ 



Substantiallj- it leaves those denominational scliools as 

 tliey are to-day. There are very few, indeed, of them in 

 whicli specific denominational teacliing is beini? g:iven on 

 more than two mornings in tile week. Tlie general scheme 

 of religious instruction in the denominational school is far 

 more undenominational than most people imagine. The 

 trained instinct of the teacher as applied to the limited 

 capacity of the pupil makes tliat circumstance absolutely 

 inevitable. The net result, therefore, of this part of Mr. 

 BirreH'B Bill is to leave the denominationalists substan- 

 tially as well off as ever they have been in the matter of 

 religious instruction. As to linance. it puts into their 

 pockets an .annual rental from State funds which— now they 

 are entirel.v relieved of the upkeep of the fabric — may in 

 part be applied to the payment of a denominational vol- 

 unteer on two mornings a week, and, for the rest, will be 

 found very iiseful indeed in furthering a variety of paro- 

 chial agencies. 



Dr. J. G. Rogers argues cogently in favour of the 

 Bill, advising the clericals to agree with their 

 adversary quickly while they are in the wav with 

 them. 



BLACKWOOD RAMPANT. 



Needless to say, Blackwood's Magazine is not 

 pleased with the Bill or with Mr. Birrell. The 

 country, it thinks, will speak its mind prettv freelv 

 on the corrupt and unprincipled bargain between 

 the Government and the Nonconformists, to which 

 this measure is due. " It is the most nefarious poli- 

 tical transaction since the reign of Queen Anne." 

 Its practical suggestion is that of Sir .\. .^cland 

 Hood — " a Church Defence Association " all over 

 England, to bring Churchmen together and accustom 

 them to common action: — 



Other modes of turning the righteous indignation of the 

 Church into a useful practical direction will doubtless be 

 suggested by Churclimen and their leaders. 



EFFECT IN- LANCASHIRE AND YOEKSmRE. 



The Quarterly Review, in its April number, sup- 

 ports the contention of the Primate that the Bill is 



in principle unjust. It takes as example the case of 

 Lancashire, where out of 212,939 school places 

 nearly 105,000 have been provided by the Church of 

 England, against 37,3x3 provided by the Roman 

 Catholics. The Bill would allow 14,246 children 

 (average attendance at the Roman Catholic schools) 

 to continue receiving, in schools maintained out of 

 public money, full instruction in accordance with 

 the tenets of their Church ; while the more than 

 85,000 children in average attendance at the An- 

 glican and Wesleyan schools in the neighbouring 

 towns or villages are deprived of the right to be 

 taught their respective faiths by the teachers whom 

 they know and respect. The reviewer predicts that 

 the working-classes of Yorkshire and Lancashire and 

 London will protest with effect against the Bill. He 

 also takes strong exception to the reward offered to 

 Welsh insurrection by the grant of Welsh autonomy 

 in matters educational — a large instalment of Home 

 Rule all round. 



CANADIAN AND PEUSiilAN ALTERNATIVES. 



The Quarterly happily does not content itself with 



negative criticism. It closes by saying : — 



The remedy does not lie in any of those directions, but in 

 the adoption and adaptation to English circumstances and 

 requirements of some principle like the allocation of rates 

 by members of different religious bodies to separate schools 

 maintained by their own bodies, which is in force in Can- 

 ada: or like the special provision of religious instruction 

 for minorities, at local and national charges, adopted in 

 Prussia. With some arrangement of one of these kinds, 

 which, over large parts of England, might include the pro- 

 portioning of teachers on the staff of schools to the local 

 strength of the principal religious bodies to be considered, 

 peace might he ijermanentl.v established. 



THE BISHOP OF SODOR AND MAN. 



In the Twentieth Century Quarterly the Bishop of 



Sodor and Man presses for a more moderate attitude 



than is assumed by many extreme Churchmen. He 



says : — 



The proposition that only the elements of the Christian 

 religion, on which all Protestant Trinitarian Cliristians 

 agree, sliould suffice to be taught in elementary schools finds 

 comparatively little favour in high ecclesiastical quarters. 

 And vet. in parts of his Majesty's dominions, as «.(/. in the 

 West Indies, an admirable syllabus of religious teaching has 

 been drawn up by the Archbishop of those isLands and the 

 ministers of various denominations there, which by com- 

 mon consent h.is lieen included in the code of the .lamaica 

 Board of Education; while at home the syllabuses of such 

 instruction prepared by the London School Board and 

 various County Councils me«t with wide acceptance and 

 apijroval. 



The Bishop devoutly ejaculates: — 



Would to God that, by striving at some such a compro- 

 mise as these illu.st rations suggest, the Protestant Trini- 

 tarian Cliristi.ans of England and Wales would agree to 

 avoid the risk for themselves and their children which 

 otherwise seems likely to occur, and thus facilitate a choice- 

 of ways for the Government which would secure, at least 

 for an enorniotis preponderance of the cliildrcn of England, 

 such a religious education as would save the country from 

 Uie eternal disgrace of the banishment of all religion from 

 our elementary schools — one, too, which might easily ber 

 supplemented by catechising in church, and further instruc- 

 tion in Sunday schools. 



"AN APPEAL TO LAYMEN.' 



Mr. fhilip Morell, M.P., in the Twentieth Cen- 

 tury Quarterly, appeals to laymen to recognise ac- 

 complished fact.j. The General Election has indis- 



