Source.—Life of the Right Hon. W.E. Forster, M.P., by T. Wemyss Reid, vol. i., pp. 501–503. (Chapman and Hall, 1888.)

The fate of the Bill was still in suspense. No one could be quite sure that Mr. Gladstone intended to press forward with it during that session. Mr. Gladstone himself held strongly to the Bill in the shape in which it had first been introduced; but he had been startled and alarmed by the rising of the Liberal party against it, and he did not appear to share the robust self-confidence with which Mr. Forster faced the formidable flank attacks that were being delivered upon the Government from the benches below the gangway. On June 12 Mr. Forster submitted to Mr. Gladstone a Memorandum on the subject of the measure and the rival amendments which had been proposed by the representatives of the different sections of their own party.

“The first question which suggests itself,” said Mr. Forster in this Memorandum, “is, Why listen to either of their amendments? Why not stick to our Bill as it stands? Our proposal that the majority should have what religious teaching it pleases, while the minority is protected, is logical and impartial in theory, and would work well in practice. Can we not, then, carry it? Yes, with the help of the Opposition; but I fear a majority of our side of the House would vote against it. All the Radicals—not merely men like Fawcett, but earnest supporters of the Bill like Mundella—all the Dissenters from Baines to Richards, would find themselves forced to oppose us, and they would be followed, or rather led, into the lobby by the Whigs, by Sir George Grey and Whitbread; and all our best friends, like Brand, would beg us to prevent a division which would break up the party.”

Clearly Mr. Forster, when he penned this Memorandum, had no liking for the idea of carrying the Bill by means of the votes of the Opposition and against those of his party. After discussing the various amendments, he declared himself in favour of one proposed by Mr. Cowper-Temple, which was virtually identical with his own suggestion to Lord Ripon in the letter of May 18. By this amendment it was ordered that no catechism or religious formulary distinctive of any particular denomination should be taught in the public schools.

“It may be said,” continued Mr. Forster in his Memorandum, “that this plan is unjust inasmuch as it does not give the majority which prefers catechisms the same chance as the majority which does not, and it is insufficient because it still leaves the Boards free to quarrel as to whether they will have the Scriptural teaching or purely secular, or the quasi-secular schools suggested by Richards. To the last objection the sole reply, and to my mind the sufficient reply, is that this plan will be acceptable to a large majority in the House and in the country, because by excluding the Catechism it silences the rallying-cries of controversy and limits the range for dispute; and because it binds, by Act of Parliament, to have none of the theoretical character teaching which would naturally be given by the schoolmaster to young children in a common school, but to which the local bodies wish to be guided by Parliament. “With regard to the majorities which decidedly prefer catechisms, especially the Catholics, I think we can and should meet their case. I confess I cannot but think this would have been easier to do if we had framed the Bill in accordance with my original Memorandum, and, prescribing Bible lessons as a rule, had then made allowance for exceptional localities, desiring either purely secular or distinctive schools.”

On June 16 the debate on the Bill was at last resumed, and Mr. Gladstone then made a statement which in substance was merely an amplification of Mr. Forster’s suggestion.