v.] THE ONE INSTRUMENT OF ETHICAL CULTURE. 143

beyond the grave. I am viewing it from the standpoint of this life only. And so viewed, I say that religion is a sort of centre of gravity of human knowledge. It is the greatest source of moral authority in this world, because it is, according to Kant's admirable definition, " the representation to ourselves of the moral law as the will of God." Can morality work upon the world at large without such representation? Can we banish the vision of the Creator, Witness and Judge of men, from our schoolrooms and not enfeeble, yes, emasculate, the whole of the teaching given there? M. Renan, an unsuspected witness, thinks not. "Le paysan sans religion," he writes, "est le plus laide des brutes ne portant plus le signe distinctive de l'humanité." * Similar was the judgment of the first Napoleona keen judge of human nature, however else we may account of him-expressed in words every one of which is like a peal of artillery: "Il me faut faire des élèves qui sachent être des hommes: on n'est pas homme sans Dieu : l'homme sans Dieu, je l'ai vu à l'œuvre en 1793: cet homme-là on ne le gouverne pas: on le mitraille."

And this confronts us with a grave practical difficulty in an age of religious disunity. In the present day a common creed and a common cult no longer supply the bond of states and the rule

*L'Avenir de le Religion, p. 487.

of legislation. Religion is no longer the great objective fact, dominating all relations of life. "Les religions," said Turgot, "sont des opinions. Il ne peut donc pas y avoir de religion dominante. Il n'y est de dominant que le droit et la justice pour tous." This declaration, regarded when it was made, in the last century, as a perilous paradox, is now accepted as the tritest of truisms. And the State has everywhere been secularized in accordance with it. Religion is regarded as a private thing for every man's conscience. He may have any variety of it which he prefers, and as much or as little of it as he pleases. But the State, qua State, has no religion, although maintaining the free exercise of all religions. It professes itself (in the French phrase) incompetent in the matter of cults, and displays, or affects to display, benevolent neutrality towards them all. I, for my part, do not pretend to admire this condition of things, so loudly eulogized by many as the ripe fruit of liberty, a high stage of progress, a magnificent conquest of the modern mind. It appears to me, as a student of history, that a national religion is a great national safeguard, and, as a student of philosophy, that it is necessary to the perfection of the social organism. And I believe that, as time goes on, the want of it will be increasingly felt in every country. But whether I am right or wrong in so thinking, certain it is that one great problem lying before modern society is to reconcile the authority of

v.] THE SCHOOL BOARD COMPROMISE.

145

religious convictions with the Agnosticism of governments. And how, to speak merely of our present subject, is it possible for the State to obtain the aid of religion as an instrument of ethical culture, while maintaining its attitude of religious neutrality?

It has been observed, not without truth, that if you wish to recommend any course of action to Englishmen generally, there is no better device than to commend it as a middle course. The solution adopted by us of the religious difficulty in education given by the State possesses this recommendation. To banish religion altogether from the Board Schools was repugnant to the instincts of piety, happily so strong in the English people. On the other hand, to teach there any existing variety of Christianity was clearly impossible. And so a new variety which, it was supposed, would not hurt the most sensitive Nonconformist conscience, was invented for the use of Board Schools. permits the Bible to be taught, but excludes all formularies. It is, in truth, Theism plus a certain amount of Christian sentiment. And its special recommendation is held to be that it is undogmatic. As a matter of fact, it is not so. The total banishment of dogmas would mean infinite conjecture. The existence of God or the authority, in however attenuated a form, of the Bible, is as much a dogma as Transubstantiation or Justification by Faith alone. But the dogmas of the Board School religion are few, and they are not obtruded. I suppose its

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It

practical effect is to instil into the minds of children that sense of Divine Providence, that habit of endeavouring to trace it in all events, which are distinctive of the Hebrew Scriptures, and to familiarize them with the sacred scenes and pregnant precepts of the Evangelical history. I by no means incline to undervalue such Biblical training. It seems to me that, as a matter of fact, it brings home, more or less effectively, to many who receive it the highest and most operative ideals. Those august lessons from beyond the grave, uttered, as it were, from the realms of eternity, can hardly fail to bring an element of poetry and morality into many lives. I am very far from asserting that the School Board religion is a satisfactory substitute for the definite instruction in faith and practice which every Christian community more or less fully and precisely gives. But I do assert that as compared with no religious teaching at all it is something considerable: and that it is more than a State, which has ceased to be distinctively Christian, if acting within its logic, could fairly be expected to give to the children whose Education, through their parents' default, it is itself obliged to undertake.

Assuredly, however, the State has no right, directly or (which is much more likely) indirectly, to impose this religion upon any children whose parents prefer more definite teaching. It is for the parents, not for the State, to choose how their children shall be taught. The Denominational

v.]

THE RIGHTS OF THE STATE.

147

system (as it is called) is the only system possible in this country which is consistent with the father's rights, which respects his religious liberty. But those rights and that liberty are not absolute. They are conditioned by the rights and needs of the social organism. The same principles which warrant the State in undertaking the Education of children who, otherwise, would not be educated at all, also warrant it in requiring that the intellectual instruction of the nation shall come up to a certain. standard. "A government," to quote words of Mr. Mill, is justified in requiring from all the people that they shall possess instruction in certain things, but not in prescribing to them how, or from whom, they shall obtain it."* Does it, however, follow that Education thus enforced by the State should be paid for by the State? By no means. The function of the State is to define the public duties of the subject. Upon the subject lies the obligation of performing those duties, at his own proper cost and charges. But unquestionably the principle of social solidarity requires that those who, while doing their best for the Education of their children, are unable to comply with the legitimate requirements of the State should be assisted from the public funds in the fulfilment of that duty. The cry raised against the aid thus given to Denominational schools as an indirect endowment of religion is absurd. With religion, as a divine revelation, the unreligious

* Principles of Political Economy, Book V. c. xi. § 9.