Private schools.

Public

schools.

tions are not absent from those which carry on the education of the country. In dealing with this subject it is not necessary to attempt a scientific classification of English schools, which from a legal point of view may be roughly divided into six classes :

(1) Private schools.

(2) Public schools.

(3) Endowed schools.

(4) Public elementary schools.

(5) Public higher grade and technical schools. (6) Poor-law, reformatory, and industrial schools. In private schools, which embrace all schools not supported by endowments or money provided from public funds, there is in this country no legal restriction in matters of religion, and the master or owner of such school may at his own pleasure provide or abstain from providing religious instruction, and if he does provide it may insist on all the pupils taking part in it, or make such exceptions as he thinks fit. The instruction may be of any kind the master chooses, subject perhaps to this limitation, that it must be such that it can be brought within the tenets of one or other of the religions which have been admitted to the benefits of the Toleration Acts, and provided also that no attempt is made to make children educated in the Christian religion deny the truth of Christianity, for such an attempt might bring the master within the pains and penalties of the obsolete but still existing Act for the more effectual suppressing of Blasphemy and Profaneness (9 Will. III, c. 35), the history of which was given in the second of these articles. The only remedy of a parent who disapproves of the religious education given at a private school is to withdraw his child and place him at another school.

Public schools in the legal sense include only those which come under the provisions of the Public Schools Act, 1868, and its amending Acts (31 & 32 Vict., c. 118; 32 & 33 Vict., c. 58; 34 & 35 Vict., c. 60; 36 & 37 Vict., c. 41 and c. 62), namely,

Eton, Winchester, Westminster, Charterhouse, Harrow,
Rugby, and Shrewsbury. The principal Act empowers the
governing bodies of these schools to make, and from time to
time to alter and annul, regulations with respect to various
matters, amongst which those relating to religion are-
(a) With respect to attendance at Divine service, and,
where the school has a chapel of its own, with respect to
the chapel services and the appointment of preachers.
(b) With respect to giving facilities for the education of
boys whose parents or guardians wish to withdraw them
from the religious instruction given in the school.
head master is, however, entitled to be consulted on all such
regulations, and also to submit to the governing body
proposals for making new or altering or annulling old
regulations. At the present time Harrow is the only one
of these schools in which regulations have been made to
enable Jewish boys not only to be absent from Divine
service in the school chapel, but also to receive instruction
in the tenets of their own religion.

The

It should be added that by the thirteenth section of the Act of Uniformity (14 Car. II, c. 4), which is still unrepealed as to them, the governors and heads of Westminster, Winchester, and Eton are required to conform to the Church of England and subscribe the Thirty-nine Articles.

Endowed schools are now governed by the Endowed Endowed Schools Act of 1869 and the amending Acts (32 & 33 Vict., schools. c. 56; 36 & 37 Vict., c. 87; and 37 & 38 Vict., c. 87), and comprise all schools (other than those coming under the Public Schools Act) which are wholly or partly maintained by means of any endowment, including therefore many of the institutions popularly known as public schools. Before 1869 these schools had been divided into two classes, there being no statutory requirement as to exemption from religious education of children in schools which came under the Grammar Schools Act of 1840 (3 & 4 Vict., c. 77), but in the case of other endowed schools it was provided by the Endowed Schools Act, 1860 (23 & 24 Vict., c. 11), that

The

Endowed
Schools

it should be lawful for the trustees or governors of every endowed school to make, and that they should be bound to make, orders admitting to the benefits of the school the children of parents not in communion with the church, sect, or denomination to which the endowment belonged, unless the will, deed, or other instrument regulating the endowment expressly required all children educated under it to be instructed according to the doctrines or formularies of such church or denomination.

This provision was, however, not considered adequate, and the Endowed Schools Act of 1869 was passed on the Act, 1869. recommendation of the commissioners appointed five years previously to consider the question. It applies both to grammar schools and other endowed schools, and as to religious teaching provides that in every scheme which the commissioners—now the Charity Commissioners—shall frame for the regulation of such schools provision shall be made that the parent or guardian of any child attending as a day scholar may claim by notice in writing addressed to the principal teacher the exemption of such scholar from attending prayer or religious worship, or from any lesson on a religious subject, and that such scholar shall be exempted accordingly without forfeiting any advantage or emolument to which he would otherwise be entitled, except such as may by the scheme be expressly made dependent on learning such lessons, and further that upon complaint from the parent or guardian that any teacher systematically teaches any religious doctrine to a child after such notice has been sent, the governing body shall inquire into the complaint, and if judged well founded shall take proper measures for its remedy.

This refers to day scholars only, but with regard to boarding schools it is enacted that every scheme shall provide that if the parent or guardian of any scholar about to attend such school, who otherwise could only be admitted as a boarder, desires his exemption from attending prayer or religious worship or any lesson on a religious subject,

but the persons in charge of the boarding houses of the school are not willing to allow such exemption, then it shall be the duty of the governing body of the school to make proper provisions for enabling the scholar to attend the school and have such exemption as a day scholar.

Moreover, the religious opinions of any person or his attendance or non-attendance at any particular form of religious worship shall not in any way affect his qualification for being one of the governing body of such endowment. But schools which are maintained out of the endowment of any cathedral or collegiate church, or the scholars of which are required by the express terms of the instrument of foundation to be instructed according to the doctrines or formularies of any particular church, sect, or denomination, are excepted from these provisions as to religious instruction or worship, other than those for the exemption of day scholars when it has been duly claimed. It is to be observed that these conscience clauses do not enable parents to claim exemption for their children from attendance upon a Saturday, or any other day to be set apart for religious observance by the tenets of their creed, nor to insist upon their admission as boarders, though they can demand that provision should be made for them to attend an endowed school, which has theretofore been confined to boarders, as day scholars, and in fact at several schools, such as Clifton, Cheltenham, and the Perse Grammar School, boarding houses for the exclusive use of Jewish boys have actually been established 2.

elemen

In the case of public elementary schools it was necessary Public to make more stringent provisions upon this subject, because tary the Education Act of 1870 made attendance at these schools. schools compulsory for all children whose education was not otherwise provided for by their parents. It was therefore enacted that no child should be compelled to

1 32 & 33 Vict., cap. 56, sec. 19, and see also 36 & 37 Vict., cap. 87, sec. 7. See In re the Endowed Schools Act, 1869, in re Christ's Hospital (1890), L. R. 15 A.C. 172, esp. pp. 181-3.

attend or abstain from attending any Sunday school or place of religious worship, and that any parent may withdraw his child from any religious observance kept or religious instruction given in the school, and also from attendance at the school upon any day exclusively set apart for religious observance by the religious body to which he belongs. In order to make the right of withdrawal from religious instruction effective it was further provided that such instruction should only be given at the beginning or the end of the school hours at times to be inserted in a time-table, which must be approved by the Board of Education, which last provision is sufficient to prevent the sacrifice of secular to religious education by devoting too large a proportion of the school hours to the latter.

These provisions apply to all public elementary schools, and in the case of those provided by a local authority it is further

133 & 34 Vict., cap. 75, sec. 7, the words of which are: "(1) It shall not be required, as a condition of any child being admitted into or continuing in the school, that he shall attend or abstain from attending any Sunday school or any place of religious worship, or that he shall attend any religious observance or any instruction in religious subjects in the school or elsewhere, from which observance or instruction he may be withdrawn by his parent, or that he shall, if withdrawn by his parent, attend the school on any day exclusively set apart for religious observance by the religious body to which the parent belongs.

"(2) The time or times during which any religious observance is practised or instruction in religious subjects is given at any meeting of the school shall be either at the beginning or at the end, or at the beginning and the end of such meeting, and shall be inserted in a Timetable to be approved by the Education Department, and to be kept permanently and conspicuously affixed in every school-room; and any scholar may be withdrawn by his parent from such observance or instruction without forfeiting any of the other benefits of the school. (See also sec. 74 (2).)

"(3) The school shall be open at all times to the inspection of any of Her Majesty's Inspectors, so, however, that it shall be no part of the duties of such inspector to inquire into any instruction in religious subjects given at such school, or to examine any scholar therein in religious knowledge or in any religious subject or book."

Provision for the examination of children in religious subjects is made in sec. 76, which, however, is applicable only to non-provided schools.