Punch (58.1870)

Mabch 26, 1870.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

119

FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENCE.

Mr. Punch to Master Gutterblood, in Town, and Master
Chawbacon, in the Country.

My Dear Little Boys,

You have been much in my mind lately, as in everybody's
mind that has a mind. Between your two families you make up the

for all schools. When I argue with them, " Don't you see no child is
to be obliged to attend religious lessons ? The little Presbyterian is not
to be catechised into the Establishment: nor the small Protestant
massed and mummeried and mariolatried into the Church of Rome :
nor the little Jew Mortaraed into a Christian." "Ah—yes—" they say,
" that's all very well, as regards the faith of the children—that's safe
enough, we admit—but how about the credit of the Church their
parents belong to ? Do you think, as a Dissenter, I am going to stand

mass of the rank and file at least of Young England. Looking at Old Establishment lessons m the School I pay rates to-or vice versa ?
England bv the light of Poor Law and Police Reports, Criminal1 And on this point it seems, a good many of them mean to take their
Statistics, Education Returns and Sanitary Bluebooks, as well as the ; stand between you and Mr. Forster s schools-insisting that religious
lesser lights oi'my own eyes and ears, I don't like the notion of vour step-! teaching shall be excluded rom ad ot them; because it will, probably,
ping into your fathers'sins, and sorrows, and sufferings, asipart of your j>ave, per force, to be excluded from a certain number, m the large
inheritance. I want you to be better fed, betterbehaved, thriftier, soberer, towns. . . . ,

healthier, kinder, cleaner in your clothes and talk, more God-fearing j' N°7> ™Y little friends, this might be all very well for those who

and God-loving, more thqughtful of your families and your fellows, of
those you work for, and those who work for you, than your fathers
were before you. And that you may be all this, I want you, first
of all, to be better taught. Modern gardening has shown us that

were likely to get religious teaching elsewhere, but a good many of
you, I'm afraid, if you don't get it in school, are likely to go
without it altogether. And, whether or no, the bulk of the English
people seem to be of opinion—they may be wrong, but I think they

there is no wav of improving the fruit of the tree like root-pruning and i honestly believe-that some simple religious teaching is a good and
root-feeding: and I want to see you growing a good deal better fruit j ? needful thing in the schools you are sent to. T hey don t want
than we have been in the habit of sending to market off you. Teach-1 ™ cram the doctrines or catechisms or creeds ot this or that Church
ing you is the only way to bring this about; and so the Government j down your throats, but they think that you might be, and ought to
has at last come to see, and has been doing what it could for thirty ■ be, taught the great lessons of Christ s deeds and words and the aws
years past, to sret you to school, to set vour little minds a-growing in j oi ,du.ty to God m wlucli are |he roots ot duty to man. Because, here
the right way for bearing the right fruit. But there has been one ; ancJ s?cts are so mlxed', churche\ so balanced, that their strifes

thing in the way-the black coats. There was the Parson, and the Priest, S aild jealousies may prevent this—which case Mr. i orster has pro-
and the Dissenting Minister all wanting to have you all to himself, j Tided tor—this is no reason, they maintain, for saying that such teaching
each protesting it would be your ruin, here and hereafter, if any of the ! shaTU be shut out of a 1 schools whatever. _ I really do not think—as far
others was allowed a finger in your pie. And so, in the name of as \can^ud°e~^ ,the ^nrfish Pe0P\s ™» or;wdl consent to have it
the big R, Religion, a good many of you were denied your lesser three ?° shut out. They do not desire to give any Church the nglu to force
R's, and went without teaching, while the churches squabbled who j H'S creeds or catechisms on children who belong to other churches; but
should teach vou. No wonder many sensible, straightforward people that guarded against by what is caUed a Conscience Clause binding
got out of patience with this, and said they'd be hanged if it should go on a11' tbey would prefer schools m which is taught such simple religion
on any longer. If Parson, Priest, and Minister couldn't agree how to hf JP^7,de&l httle boys, sorely need, and may all of you safely take m
work at you, at least neither Parson, Priest nor Minister should longer I at the hands of any. ^™ whatever. At least I think so If I am
prevent the work. You should be taught without them. Not one of: wron"> * am sorry for it. For I fear, as I said before, that for a good
them should set foot in a Government school. If they insisted on ' ™an^ of you no re igious teaching m school means no religious teach-
having schools of their own, they should pay for them. But Parson,' ^ at alL . * or ah of you, schoo -teaching with religion shut out from
Priest, and Minister combined to say " No" to this, and so did a great i lt> .seems .to ,me.to. mean schoo -teaching starved and stunted, and
many who held with them, and the row over you got louder and j m 1S 7 6 vou better bovs and better

bitterer than ever.

At last a clever, hard-headed, hard-working, friend of mine, called
W. E. Forstek, was set by the Government to devise a way of putting
things to rights—of having you taught, and yet not denying yoa, if it
could be avoided, that best part of teaching which shows men their
relations and duty to God and their neighbours commonly called
religious teaching. So W. E. Forster went to work with a will, as he
always does at everything he sets about, and contrived a plan. All the
schools now working, under Government inspection, were to be left.
But they do not meet all the needs of towu or country. How were the
gaps to be filled ?

All over the country there were to be School Boards chosen. In-
pectors were to examine the schools in every parish, and say if they
were sufficient in quantity and quality. If they weren't, the Education
Office was to let the School Boards know of the deficiency, and call •
upon them to make it good; and if they wouldn't, to make it good for jeaJousy of the Dissenters that kept you ignorant, now it looks as it
them ° ! you were to be kept in the dark by the Dissenters jealousy ot the

' There was to be a School Rate to help the School-pence and the I Established Church working with those who distrust, and dislike equally
Government Grant. Those of you whose parents could not afford to ChTurch and D^sent and all forms of re igious creed

men.

I have always been vexed with the Churches for thrusting their rival
claims between you and the school-door.

When a plan has been hit upon, as it has been by Mr. Forster,
that robs these rival claims of all power to oppress, I would rather
that religion was, as the rule, let in, than that it was shut out, as the rule.
Which it shall be is the alternative now about to be fought out.
I can only regret, my dear little boys, that the battle should be fought,
as it has been so long a fighting, over your poor little souls, and minds,
and bodies. I should once have said, I grieve that while the Churches
are hot in strife you should be left out in the cold. But that is not
the right way to put it now. Those who are now barring your road
to school are not the Churches, but those who insist that no Church at
all shall have a hand in your teaching -when you have got there. I
have been accustomed to think that it was the Established Church's

pay School-pence for you were to be taught free.

These School Boards were to make bye-laws fixing the conditions on
which parents should be compelled to send their children to school.
They were further to decide what the religious teaching ot the School
should be, or whether there should be any, seeing that in some
places the bulk of you would be Protestant; in some, Papist; in
some, of the Established Church; in some, Dissenters; while in some

I am very sorry to find that so many who have till now fought hard at
Mr. Forster's side to get you taught, should be fighting against him,
when he has hit on a way which lets you into school, without shutting
out the common Faith that seeks entry there along with you, and which
must always be your best schoolmaster, whoever may be the other.

Forgive this long and grave, if not dull letter. I felt the subject
was too important to be silent about, and too serious to joke upon

uuiii^, \jl mv jjgiouunuw \^uu.ivil, m avjuio, Jjio^llicio Willie 111 3ULUC v iV . * n f1 • i

large towns all sects would be so mixed up together, that the only way jlour aflectionate old friend,
would be to leave the religious teaching to be done quite apart from j ======-

the three R's, and make no provision at all for it in the ordinary School i

lessons. But this, mind you, was only where it couldn't be helped.! Odium Theologicum

It was a painful necessity, not a desirable consummation. Whatever
the religious teaching was, no child, as I have told you, was to be
forced to attend it whose parents wished him kept away for religious
teaching in his own creed.

Well, now, don't you think this was a very clever plan of Mr,

The Times' Special Correspondent at Rome, referring to the Papal
journals, says :—

"A happv thought has struck them apropos to the King of Bavaria.
Louis the First lost his throne by a silly attachment to Lola Montf.s, and

Forster's for getting over the difficulty of the black coats, and yet V™Uar ^^5l^G,FR may be attended witk the Uke

not shutting out religious teaching from Schools, except where it made dl8astrous resuit for LouIS bEC0^

The Papal journals, intentionally or unintentionally, disregard the
British maxim which says " Comparisons are odious."

the School impossible P

So I thought; and so most people thought, I fancied. And strange
to say, for once so the black coats seemed to think—at least the Parsons
—who used to be the most difficult to satisfy—and a good many of

the Ministers. more than could be expected.

But there are some who are not satisfied yet, who want to make' Some people seem so utterly stupid that one feels relieved even to
Mr. Forster's exceptional case—of no religious teaching—the rule 1 hear them say that they have "half a mind."