The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-07 00:00:00

STATE EDUCATION,

Three or four weeks ago we drew attention
to the fact that Liberals are fast abandoning
their old incredibly shallow theory on the
function of the State. They no longer say that
a civil ruler transgresses his province when he
aims at promoting the people's religious wel-
fare, but, on the contrary, agree with Catho-
lics that such is his very highest office. Error,
however, is always in extremes ; and Liberals,
accordingly, are now leaping into a wild ex-
treme on the opposite side. The Pall-Mall
Gazelle is in this respect a characteristic repre-
sentative of their views. Half a year or so
back our contemporary maintained in set terms
that the State should form a religious creed of
its own, and should base all its acts on the
assumption that this creed is indubitably true.
The despotism of Liberals is a bye-word ; and
we pointed out at the time that such a view as
this, if consistently carried out, must lead to
the most systematic and unflinching persecu-

tion.
In its issue of February 23, the Pall Mal
Gazette returns to the charge, apropos of the
Archbishop's recent pastoral, and claims in
effect for the State a power to supersede alto-
gether the parental office in children's educa-
tion. We cannot do better than insert here that
whole passage from the Pastoral, which has
given occasion to so singular an outbreak :
" It is evident the State has no authority to
deprive children of the education which their
baptism gives them a right, nor to interfere
with the authority of parents in determining
the education of their children. The State has
no commission, either natural or revealed, to
educate ; and no jurisdiction over the rights of
parents or of the Church in the education of
its children. Here we are at a direct issue with
the erastian and latitudinarian politicians. The
wisest policy of the State, for its own sake, is
to assist both parents and the Church in the
work of education. The public revenues can-
not be better applied than in preventing igno-
rance and crime ; nor more unprofitably spent
than in punishing what it ought to have pre-
vented. It is true, indeed, that the State may
protect itself. If parents, through criminal
neglect of their offspring, suffer them to grow
up in ignorance, and thereby to commit crime,
society in self-defence may punish the parent
and endeavour to reclaim the child. But even
then it has no rights against the faith and con-
science of the parents or their children ; for
these things are of a higher order, over which
the State has no control. Nay, more than this.
The State not only has no parental duty to
educate, but it has not itself the power nor the
faculties to do so. The formation of the mind,
will, aiid. conscience demands the action of
moral' and yeligousiflauuenthocersitwiehs. which lie, beyond
noond
the limits of all civil
alternative t either to call in the aid of
parents
Church, and to assist them
and b
of the
with the material means necessary for this
work, which lies beyond its reach; or to reduce
education to instruction. Let these never be
confounded, even for a mom6nt. A Minister
of Public Instruction is intelligible; a Minister
of Public Education there cannot be. The
office is not vacant. The Church has received
this commission from its Divine Head."
The Pall-Mall Gazette admits that the Arch-
bishop has here expressed himself with " sin-
gular point and clearness." For ourselves we
must further maintain that his doctrine is both
undeniably true and inappreciably important.
We have no right, of course, to constitute our-
selves the Archbishop's interpreters ; yet we
will venture to draw out in our own way that
general doctrine which we understand him here
to express. In a future number we will con-
sider the truly surprising objections to that
doctrine which our contemporary has brought
before the public.
A considerable number of English parents
are Catholics ; and there is a very large class
of non-Catholics who have firm religious con-
victions of their own up to a certain point.
These persons are (it may be presumed) invin-
cibly ignorant of Catholicism ; at all events,
they sincerely accept the Bible as the Word
of God, and believe certain doctrines as being
those taught in the Bible. Consider the case
of one of these persons. By becoming a parent
he has brought into existence certain immortal
beings, whose eternal destiny must greatly de-
pend on their clinging firmly to moral and
religious truth. No obligation can be more
formal and more indispensable than that of
securing for them the possession of what he
accounts to be such truth. Better for him
that he had never been born than that he
should betray the eternal interests of those
whose existence he has caused, and whom God
has so specially entrusted to his care. If he
is a Protestant, he acts more laudably in pro-
portion as he uses more earnest efforts that his
children should receive what he regards as true
religious education. If he is a Catholic, the
case is far more simple. He knows that the
Church is the divinely-appointed guardian
of religious truth, and the divinely-appointed
educator of her flock ; it is she who teaches
him what is his full duty towards his chil-
dren, and who supplements his efforts in the
matter by her own ministrations.
To such a parent the State presents itself,
offering its own peculiar creed, and claiming
to educate in that creed. Now, there can be
no legitimate conviction generated in the
parent's mind by this offer. No one alleges
that the State has any peculiar insight—still
less any divinely-implanted insight—into reli-
gious truth. If the Protestant has hitherto held
that the Bible is the Word of God, and teaches
certain doctrines, he cannot cease to think so,
because the State tells him that the Bible is
not the Word of God, or that it does not teach
those doctrines. Still less, of course—immea-
surably less—can the State's voice have any
effect whatever in shaking a Catholic's faith.
The State does not act on the people's convic-
tions, but only on their corrupt interests and
on their fears.
In fact, when the State desires to promote
this or any other educational system, it has
but two recognised means at its disposal : per-
suasion and compulsion. Let us consider these

successively.
Firstly, then, it may avoid compulsion • and
, •
may merely seek to recommend its plan by
making it far more easy for every parent's
temporal rest to accept it than to reject it. In
this case it simply performs the devil's work ;
it tempts a parent to the formal commission
of mortal sin ; it pursues its aim by corrupt-
ing his moral conduct, deadening his conscience,
ruining him for this world and the next.
But let us suppose that, impatient of failure,
the State resorts to compulsion. It requires
the parent under heavy penalties to abandon
his children's education to its tender mercies,
and to give them up to be trained in what
he accounts religious error. Straightway
every sincere Christian minister of every de-
nomination impresses on his flock the absolute
duty incumbent on them of obeying God. rather
than man ; of refusing all obedience to this
unjust and tyrannical command ; of forming
an organised moral resistance against such
intolerable tyranny.
We aro very confident that the religious feel-
ing of England is amply strong enough—strong
enough with much strength to spare—for the
triumphant overthrow of every scheme which
may be attempted for promoting latitudina-
rianism in education : our only doubt is,
whether this feeling will do justice to itself,
and put forth its full strength. Let all Chris-
tian denominations unite politically against
the common enemy—let them wage an inter-
necine war against the detestable aggression
which is threatened—success is certain. We
cannot feel equally confident, on the supposi-
tion that the respective denominations allow
their mutual differences (most serious un-
doubtedly in themselves) to paralyse their
united external action, in the political sphere.
But on this issue—more (we believe) than on
all others put together—the future of England
depends.
The State's office in the work of education
is, at least, no unimportant one, though subor-
dinate, It is simply this ;to give the greatest