Religion and educational progress: Two historical cases with contemporary relevance

Abstract

This study comprises accounts of how two western societies achieved legislative provision for mass education in the latter 1800's: England and Wales in 1870, and Nova Scotia in 1864 and 1865. The accounts are used to illuminate the bearing that religion had on those educational reforms and thereby to show better how religion can contribute to educational progress today.

In both cases, the society's major religious groups were in sympathy with the principle of universal elementary education supported by taxes. But differences among and within the groups over the religious character and/or the control of the schools did constitute an obstacle to be overcome. Public officials who championed mass education were supportive of the advancement of religion, yet they placed limits on religious expression and control in education in order to achieve a balance of interests. A vision of the promise of mass education and their duty to procure it animated the officials. This vision harmonized with their religious motivation.

Today there is an educational challenge equal to that which faced the “universalizers” in the 19th century: discerning the limits, fiscal and functional, of universalized educational systems so as to optimize their contribution to meeting educational needs, which have assumed crisis proportions. Educational interests and religious interests (along with others) should come together to define and respond to the challenge. Common aspirations, if not immediately apparent, would emerge, as they did in the two historical cases.