Guardian from London, Greater London, England • Page 24

216 THE GtTAEDIAJT, FEBBTTAUY 5, 1890. ai the General Poei-offlee Hmmaam LUX MUNDI AND ITS CRITICS. To the Editor of the Guardian. from London last evening I found on my table a copy of Canon Liddon's sermon preached in St. Paul's Cathedral on the Second Sunday in Advent, 1889, published Epiphany, 1890.

I desire to lose no time in expressing my humble thankfulness to Almighty God for this His servant's vindication of "the worth of the Old Testament," and for the support it supplies to simplicity of faith, the simplicity that is in Christ." It had appeared to myself that the one answer to every manner of questioning the genuineness and the authenticity of Scriptures of the Old Testament is not by way of reply to, and exposure of, doubtful disputations," however able and con elusive such reply may be but by way of simple and thankful referenoe to the fact that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has made those Scriptures His own; and therein has barred the way to them, as not being matter for criticism -which, directly or indirectly, oasts so much as a Bhade of doubt upon their genuineness or their authenticity, general or particular. Any such critioism is not within the category of things per missible. It is shut out terminorum vi. If it come, there are no words to characterise it in all its presumption, in all its for the ruin of souls of men; to sum up all, in all the deadly power of the pride of life." GEORGE ANTHONY DENISON. East Brent, Septuagesima Sunday, 1890.

but what is to Mr. Stone the radical fault is to me, and as I am persuaded to many quiet souls, the central merit of the book. I therefore apologise to its writers if my advocacy has been in any way damaging, or misrepresentative of their mind. How often have we to Save me from my friends But let me close by expressing my deep sense of the value of Lux Mundi, in its essential idea, as a stimulating and awakening breath in the atmosphere of our theology, Xiainp riiruv uySnav. Let those who read judge the spirit of the book by a Btandard for which there is high authority (1 Cor.

xii. 1 John iv. 2). Et flabit Spiritus Eius, et fluent Aquae." A. R.

February 1, 1890. the ordinary Englishman who reads the reviews will probably roughly decide may be taken to be somewhat as follows Well, if Jesus Christ was ignorant, or deceived, or made false statements, or backed up by His imprimatur ideas which these Oxford new lights say are untenable, all I have to say is that He was not God, whatever else He may have been." Such is the plain result of not limiting such writings to the Latin tongue, and ad clerum. W. PROBYN-NEVINS. FREE EDUCATION.

your permission I endeavoured to point out last week that the Government had not only neglected to carry into effect those measures for the relief of voluntary schools which were recommended by the Education Commission, but were apparently about to introduce a system of free education in express defiance of the recommendations of the Commission, and in the face of the avowal of the dissentient minority that no proposal for free education had been brought before them consistent with the maintenance of voluntary schools. I wish now to meet the argument that as we already pay so much towards the education of the people from public sources, it would be well and would in itself be a small matter if we paid the whole expense from public funds. The amount of the Government grant is The rates pay the guardians making a total of from public fands. The school pence paid by the parents amount only to If education is already assisted to such an extent by the common purse, not to speak of the assistance given from endowments and subscriptions, why not abolish the troublesome impost of school fees? The argument thus advanced is speciouB enough. To reply to it it is necessary to show why education must to some extent be assisted, while to make it free would be injurious.

The further question will then arise, What are the proper limits of the amount of the assistance to be given? It is necessary that assistance Bhould be given in education in order to induce parents to secure it for their children Without such inducement many would allow their children to grow up uneducated. They do not feel any pressing need of education. The children do not cry for it as they do for bread. It must be brought to their doors and made easily accessible, if they are to be induced to accept it. In many cases it has been found neoessary even to compel parents to educate their children.

There is another reason why it is necessary to assist education. Education is a costly work, and must be cheapened by co-operation. To induce parents to make use of a common school the assistance of Government is necessary. By virtue of the help given the Government Becures the right of supervision. Moreover, in small and poor places schools oould not flourish at all without the aid either of wealthy individuals or that of the State.

Education, then, must needs assisted but the assistance given to parents should be limited by the necessities of the case, that their sense of responsibility may not be lessened. The assistance granted to education from the public purse was given upon these principles up to 1870. Help was given to those who were willing to help themselves, or who could find persons willing to help them. No grant was made on account of scholars whose parents were of a certain station in life, and so, presumably, able to provide for themselves. The Act of 1870 changed this state of affairs.

Grants are now made on behalf of all children, whatever bs the means of their parents. The only remnant of the former limitations is the absurd definition of an elementary school as one where the ordinary fee does not exceed ninepence. This regulation positively prevents Bome parents paying the cost of their children's education, even when they are well able and willing to do it. But the Act of 1870 introduced another and more important change. By it school boards were empowered to contribute in aid of education.

It was apparently expected that they would simply take the part hitherto taken by voluntary bodies, and assist in some moderate way to eke out the school pence, so that the grant might be fully met. When Mr. Gladstone persuaded the Churchmen of that day to forego their just and equal claim upon the rates, he promised an addition to the Government grant, which he predicted would have the double effect of so assisting board schools that the rate would never exceed 3d. ia the pound, and of so aiding voluntary schools that they would be able to compete on fairly equal terms with board schools. We know what has happened.

The spirit of the compromise has been utterly ignored. Board schools, instead of supplementing" voluntary schools, have "supplanted" them. Some school boards, instead of encouraging parents to pay such school fees as they were able, have deliberately cut down the fees to a nominal amount. The sohool board of Birmingham have notoriously done this. Finding that the Department declined to give them leave to open free schools, they have made their normal school fee a penny.

The result of this scheme for pauperising the people is seen in the following figures. The average school fee in a Birmingham board school is 5s. 5id. The rate supplements this with 18s. The grant is 18s.

9d. Thus the parents contribute about one-eighth of the total cost of their children's education. This is not because they are unable to pay more, or even because they are unwilling to pay more. It is simply because they are not allowed to pay more. The dominant party in Birmingham, bent on destroying the voluntary principle, have brought matters to this pass in their own town.

They have thrown the compromise of 1870 to the winds, and raised their own school board rate to more than 8d. in the pound, and, having made this contribution to the common pauperisation of the country, they are now appealing to the figures that demonstrate their folly, and asking the Government to complete the work by making all schools free. It is easy now to see how it has come to pass that education is at the present time so largely assisted out of the public purse. It arises in part from the fact tbat the payment of school fees has been to so great an extent taken out of the parents' hands by school write a last word in answer to Mr. Stone's second letter, not to weary your readers with a protracted controversy, but merely to restate certain points upon which my previous letter has lent itself to misconception.

But may I first add a humble tribute to the memory of Mr. Aubrey Moore? I little imagined, as I wrote with his essay before me the week before last, that he was even then within a few hours of his rest. Many of your readers will have read with no ordinary sympathy and gratitude the noble appreciation of the man and his work signed E. S. Q.uis desiderii sit pudor.aut modus Tarn cari capitis? In order to explain myself with Mr.

Stone I will take four points. 1. Prophecy. Neither Mr. Gore's essay nor my letter question the supernatural character of prophecy, or the fact of prediction.

Only it is maintained, on the basis of an induction from Old Testament faots, that the supernatural inspiration of the prophet does not exclude, but makes use of, his human faculties, character, and even limitations. Hence a psychological and historical element interpenetrated with the Divine element, and not always easy to mark off from it. With regard to prediction, the question between us resolves itself into one of perspective. Mr. Stone claims that his perspective is that of the Apostles.

To them the detailed fulfilments, not Messianic prophecy as a whole, were the proof that Jesus was Christ. This is, I think, an overstatement. St. Peter's confession, the decisive crisis of Apostolic faith, preceded the most striking fulfilments of details. But let that pasB.

What chiefly produces conviction in one age may appeal with less force to a later age. Our perspective may differ from that of the men of our Lord's time simply because God has placed us at a different point of view. That is not contradiction. 2. Old Testament revelation progressive.

Mr. Stone admits quantitative progress, but "what was revealed (at any stage) was absolutely true." I think this breaks down. The progress was qualitative also, the earlier stages being corrected (Mr. Stone prefers to say contradicted by the later. On this point Mr.

Stone has not answered what I said last week. I will only add in illustration a reference to St. Matt. v. 43, 44 (Revised Version).

We find Divine commands in the early history which the Christian conscience would not be justified in obeying. But reading the record as a whole, as the history of a procesB toward an end, we do not allow contradiction. 3. I was far from denying, any more than do the writers in Lux Mundi, a difference in source and in kind between revela- i tion and common knowledge. But I do deny that we can in every case draw the line between them.

There is a frontier territory, and sometimes natural knowledge must be allowed a voice in the delimitation. The case of Galileo is by itself enough to prove this; the antiquity of the world and that of man are other cases in point. The Church has never authoritatively professed to draw such a line, nor would any two existing sections of the Church draw it alike. Mr. Stone himself evidently is sure where it ought to be drawn, but he does not tell us.

I gather that he would include within it the literal exaotness of every statement contained in Holy Scripture Hoc Ithacus velit, et magno mercentur Atridae." 4. Fundamental scepticism of Mr. Stone's position. This met me, not in the proposition that human reason is "liable to error" (who denied but in the denial that its conclusions can ever be certain (letter January 9th, line 126). The superhuman origin of faith does not, surely, enable it to dispense with a foundation in fact.

But I had no idea of representing this scepticism as other than unconscious. Nor do I disparage the personal faith of, say, a Pasoal because his philosophy is fundamentally sceptical. Only I would now venture with some diffidence to put a note of interrogation to Mr. Stone's other root-aBSumption, as to the absolute objective certainty of revealed truth. The certitude of Divine faith appears to me rather to consist in the energy and vital grasp with which these truths possess the soul.

Objectively, their certitude is moral; their highest credentials are found, not in the sphere of intellect, but in that of the inner (and outer) life. The whole question is one of the more difficult loci of theology, and I have no wish to confront what I think the too easy assumption of Mr. Stone with a counter-dogmatism of my own. But I can claim on this point to be at one with Bishop Butler. I tremble, however, at the claim which Mr.

Stone, on the basis of this two-fold (and as I think doubly mistaken) assumption, makes for theology. Theology has olaimed in the past, as he olaims for it now, to govern (not merely reign) as the queen of sciences, to pluck up and to cast down, and to overthrow and to build and to plant. And surely the Divine rebuke of this claim is inexorably written on the page of history. Let us not presume to renew it. Theology has her own work to do, and surely if the labourers are few, the harvest truly is plenteous.

I part from your correspondent with respect. The oase he has represented is one whioh it was well to have before us, and I am honestly thankful that it has been in such capable and temperate hands. I have been led to come forward as the apologist of Lux iU 11, but 1 wouiU uot have it thought that 1 aiu au undiBcri- ininating admirer. too, might find faults in the proper place; boards, who, having ulterior objects in view, have done their best to abolish sohool fees altogether. Where there has been anything like a decent effort to encourage the payment of sohool pence the result has been altogether different from that arrived at in Birmingham.

Thus in Manchester the average sohool fee is 16s. against the Birmingham 5s. while the Contribution from the rates is only 8s. against the 18s. 2Jd.

of Birmingham. Our fees might well be larger but for the 9d. limit, as many scholars i the higher grade sohool are able to afford contract tickets from the neighbouring towns, and do not need assisted eduoation. I oonolude, then, that what we ought to see is not more, but less assistance given in this matter. If an attempt is made by the Government to pay the fees out of the Consolidated Fund they will be at once met with this difficulty.

Do they mean to pay the fees actually now paid by the parents, or the fees which they would have paid had not the school boards pauperised them? If they propose to pay the fees actually paid, then Birmingham will cry out against Manchester because Manchester will receive three times the larger grant. If an average is straok whioh is the scheme recommended by Sir Henry Rosooe, Manchester may object that it received more from the parents than it does from the State under the new arrangement. Birmingham on the other hand, will rejoice that, the State contribution beiug larger than the fees formerly paid, the rate is to that extent eased. But after all the school boards will readily console themselveB. They have at the worst to put on an additional rate.

It is the voluntary schools which will be ruined. Their only resource in towns is to charge a somewhat higher fee than the board. The parents show their attachment to the schools by their willingness to pay the larger fee and forego their share in the rate they pay. But what will become of the schools when the contributions of their partners are gone, and in their place they receive an average fee less in amount than the parents' payment, and that at the hand of a State concerned only with the secular part of the education, and avowedly contributing to nothing else? We shall look for the new scheme for assisted education with anxiety. But peradventure it will share the fate of Mr.

Balfour's suggestion for assisted education in Ireland. JOSEPH NUNN. St. Thomas's Rectory, Ardwick, February 1, 1890. many of your readers have been convinced by your arguments that, as regards our voluntary schools, the clergy will do well to support the substitution of an Exchequer grant for fees, if proposed by the Government.

But youhave not, I think, dealt with the other question, not less not this be injurious to the parents? The Guardian contends, unless I mistake, that free dinners" given to the children indiscriminately tend to demoralise the parents. How aro we to escape the inference as to free schooling? Grants in aid, like scholarships, encourage the parents to provide education for their children but to do it all for them iB another thing. And where is the line to be drawn between the givers and the recipients? I. GREGORY SMITH. Malvern, January 29, 1890.

we have said is that schooling is so nearly free already that it cannot matter very much if it is made wholly THE UNSECTARIAN THEORY. not the assumption of the British and Foreign School that there are certain elements of the Christian faith as to which Churchmen and the generality of Nonconformists are agreed and 2, that these two parties can agree in teaching them to board school children? On the first point I should hope there is little difference among us. If any Churchman ventured to dispute it, hundreds of Roman Catholic theologians would be found to come to the rescue, and to assert, even on behalf of Nonconformists, that our "common Christianity is after all a real thing. The difficulty is as to the second point, and in regard to this it seems to me, as it does to Mr. Matthew, and as it did to Dean Hook, that the attempt at joint action must break down in practice.

As a matter of principle, indeed, many of us would decline to be responsible, even indirectly, for the religious instruction given by a teacher who had received in no form whatever a commission from the rulers of the Church. But it cannot be right to ignore the point of view taken by our opponents, especially when it is shared by many earnest supporters of Church schools, some of whom go so far as to offer diocesan inspection to those board schools which are willing to accept it, notwithstanding that the Church has been in no way consulted upon the appointment of the teacher, and that the "distinctive formularies" of the Church are expressly excluded from use. A still larger number of Churchmen are willing to act on school boards with the avowed desire not merely of providing sound secular instruction, but of rendering the religious instruction as good as the Parliamentary restrictions will permit it to be. But if this be the view taken by a large number of undoubted Churchmen, are we entitled to characterise that same instruction as "Nonconformist" merely because Nonconformists do not object to it as they object to that given in strict Church schools? Surely we must nise a difference between that which is merely incomplete and that which is essentially unsound. Teaching given in board schools may often come under the latter description, and this, in fact, was the argument (and the only argument of principle) relied on by the Bishop of Salisbury in his correspondence with Mr.

Mundella. The strongest censure which he applied to the religions teaching in board schools generally was in calling it a colourless and uncertain ratepayers' religion," and quently The present temper of the Salisbury School Board is no guarantee to the British and Foreign School Society, to any association or voluntary school managers, that the education which Christians desire will be given by their successors." As to Mr. Mundella, he was so far from recommending the British school teaching on the ground of its peculiar suitability to Nonconformists that he spoke of his favourite society as having "always advocated the united education on an undenominational Scripture basis of the entire community." The conclusive answer to the undenominational view, as thus stated, appears to be that the elements of Christianity ought not only to be truly taught as regards their matter, but to be taught also in their true order, and also in their personal application. The Christian teacher is unfaithful to his trust if, for the sake of conciliation, he deprives any truth of its rightful position and prominence, even by suppressing its bearing upon the case of the learner. Those amongst ourselves who believe practical agreement possible recognise this when they urge that the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Printed by WILLIAM ODHAMS, and Published by JOHN JAMES, at the Office, 5, Burleigh-street, Strand, in the Parish of St.

Martin-in-the-Fields, and City of FEBRUARY.