The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-11-18 00:00:00

MR. DIXON'S EDUCATION LEAGUE.

Th.: National Elneaton Union have i=sued the following
clear explanation of the present differences between the
lioll and the League :

"'lwo rival schemes of elementary education were
debated in parliament last year the government
scheme awl Mr. Dixon's. The government wished to
adept the existing voluntary schools, only liberalising
them by a conscience clause, awl to fill up all blank
places with rate-supported schools, the religious
character of which was to be determined by the rate-
payers. Mr. Dixon wished the nation to ignore
all schools maintained 'Tale religious communities, and
to substitute all over the country secular rate-sin:ported
schools. The enormous cost of Mr. Dixon's scheme,
and still more perhaps the notorious unpopularity of
the secular system in England, determined parliament
to adopt the government bilL It was carried into law
by large majorities; and the nation thought the
education perplexity was settle:l for some years to
come, and that now at last lona talk would give way
to earnest work, and the children would get educate.l.
But the defeated party are dissatisfied with the nation's
decision, and wish to reopen the whole question, and
waste another year in Va. Their grievance is this:
The act allows a school board to pay the school frof
of a child where the parent is too leer to pay them. This :
they approve ; but the act permits the parent in such
cases t, choose the school, and this they strenuously
disapprove. Of course, if the parenbs were likely to
choose the secular school Mr. Dixon would not object
to their having this liberty of choice. lint Mr. Dixon
has arshrewd suspicion that English parents are sure
to prefer the school Which he and his sixty friends in
parliament disapprove .—the religious school; there-
fore it is intolerable to give them the option. If
Mr. Dixon put his case in this nuked way it would
hardly do, as they profess to belong to the Liberal
side of the House of Commons. So he has wrap-
ped up his meaning in a phrase borrowed from
the Irish Church debates, and calls it ` concurren t
endowment.' It is • concurrent endowment.' for-
sooth. for ratepayers to pay pence into the coffers
of religious schools ! Now, if the school board divided
every £lOO of rates into four parts, and said onequarter
inl.l go in fees to the Church, and another to the
Roman Catholics, and an ithor to the Wesleyains, and
another to the liaptisb:' schools, there might be some
plausibility in the phrase; though even then the word
'endowment' would not be happily chosen. But what
is the fact? The school board merely gives John Smith
and Mrs. Brown twopence each, and says, ' You
I must each of pm send your chill to school some-
where to learn reading, writing, and ciphering, and
this is to pay for it.' If the twopence thus given
to .Tohn Smith out of the rates finds its way into
a Wesleyan school, and the twopence given to Mrs.
Brown find its evay into a Church school, it is
John Smith arel Mrs. Brown who are responsible
for it-- for the 'concurrent umiownient '--not the school
board, or parliament Mr. Dixon might as well call
it 'concurrent endowment' if two out-door paupers
were seen spending their parish shilling—the one at a
Baptist's shop and the other at a Wesleyan's. The
fact is— and the sinner the truth is confesses' the
better—Mr. Dixon's quarrel is not with Mr. Forster,
nor yet with the parliamentary majority that outvoted
him, but with the John Smiths and Mrs. Browns, with
the millions of English parents, who somehow, not-
withstanding all his efforts, persist in preferring for
their children schools where they can also learn to read
and understand their Bibles. And because he cannot
win vert them be wi-hes parlisment to coerce them.
Will the friends of religious liberty allow it?"