HISTORIES OF THE SACRED AND SECULAR Morality and Citizenship in English Schools Secular Approaches 1897-1944 Susannah Wright Histories of the Sacred and Secular, 1700-2000 Series Editor David Nash Department of History Oxford Brookes University Oxford, United Kingdom This series reflects the awakened and expanding profile of the history of religion within the academy in recent years. It intends publishing exciting new and high quality work on the history of religion and belief since 1700 and will encourage the production of interdisciplinary proposals and the use of innovative methodologies. The series will also welcome book proposals on the history of Atheism, Secularism, Humanism and unbelief/secularity and to encourage research agendas in this area alongside those in religious belief. The series will be happy to reflect the work of new scholars entering the field as well as the work of established scholars. The series welcomes proposals covering subjects in Britain, Europe, the United States and Oceana. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14868 Susannah Wright Morality and Citizenship in English Schools Secular Approaches, 1897–1944 Susannah Wright School of Education Oxford Brookes University Oxford, United Kingdom Histories of the Sacred and Secular, 1700-2000 ISBN 978-1-137-39943-4 ISBN 978-1-137-39944-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-39944-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016955814 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. 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Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover illustration: © Record Office for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book has been a long time coming. It has emerged from interests which started to develop a long time ago (just how long ago will be evident from my bibliography). I might be the sole author, but I have benefitted greatly from the help, wisdom and support of many. I would like to thank Palgrave Macmillan for believing in my project from the time of my initial proposal onwards, and commissioning editors Jenny McCall, Peter Cary and Jade Moulds for their help over time. Molly Beck, the current commissioning editor, has coped with my increasingly frequent queries in recent months with patience and humour. David Nash, as editor of the ‘Histories of the Sacred and Secular’ series, has also supported this project from the start and has been a great source of encouragement as it has progressed. The final manuscript has been enhanced, also, by a chapter developed (with substantial changes) from an article published in History of Education, and from a front cover photographic image from the records of Leicester Secular Society. I am very grateful to Taylor and Francis, and the Record Office for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, for the oppor- tunity to publish this material in the book. I have quoted Mass Observation material, and this is reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London on behalf of the Trustees of the Mass Observation Archive. The research for this book has taken me to many libraries and archives. The many staff members that I have met have invariably been helpful in response to my queries and requests, have worked hard to help me to access difficult sources, and have generously shared their knowledge of their collections. Particular thanks must go to those that I have made the greatest v vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS use of: the Manuscript reading room and main reading rooms of the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the Newsroom in the British Library, St Pancras (where I have encountered staff who previously helped me at Colindale); and the special collections and archives section at the British Library of Political and Economic Science. I have also enjoyed my visits to the Alter- natives to Religion Library at Conway Hall; Bishopsgate Institute Library; the National Archives at Kew; and Lambeth Palace Library in London. Research visits have also taken me to the Greater Manchester County Record Office and John Rylands Library, Manchester; the National Librar- ies of Wales and Scotland; and the Universities of Strathclyde, Sussex and Keele. Financial support from the Oxford Brookes University Faulty of Humanities and Social Sciences research fund has helped finance a number of these visits, and has also provided me with some relief from my teaching load in the crucial final months. Without this additional support this book would not have been completed. I have benefitted greatly from the intellectual support and wisdom of a number of colleagues. Particular thanks go to David Aldridge, Lynne Cook, Bill Gibson, Georgina Glenny, Annie Haight and Lucy Vickers at my own institution for encouragement and help with rehearsing ideas. Elsewhere, I have appreciated conversations with many colleagues, but would particu- larly like to thank Mark Freeman, Joyce Goodman, Ruth Watts and Tom Woodin. Richard Aldrich’s patience and always sound advice over many years is now sadly missed. All these have been willing to talk with me, sometimes at length, both about ideas and more prosaic aspects of the publishing process. The content of this book has also been informed by the incisive comments and questions from a number of conference and seminar audiences over a number of years. Friends, colleagues and family kindly agreed to read and comment on chapter drafts. I am very grateful to David Aldridge, Peter Cunningham, Bill Gibson, Leanne McClements, Henry McGuinness, Tom O’Donoghue, Lucy Vickers, and Elisabeth and Malcolm Wright for the time and effort that they have devoted to this, offering suggestions which, I hope, have improved the final text. Any errors, of course, remain my own. Finally, I would like to thank close friends and family for ongoing patience and support. They have provided me with much-needed caffeine and conversation. Completing this book has been demanding of time and energy, and not always easy to combine with family life with two young children. My parents, sister and partner have been incredibly generous in helping me to juggle the two. I would like to dedicate this book to the three ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii men in my household, two quite young and one (a little) older. They have been the most affected by the work that has gone into this text, and have provided me with distraction, entertainment and happiness along the way. CONTENTS 1 Introduction 1 2 Religion, Secularism and Education 17 3 Moral Instruction in the Provinces: F. J. Gould in Leicester 51 4 The Moral Instruction League, 1897–1919 83 5 International Dimensions of Moral Education, 1892–1914 115 6 The Positivist World Citizen: F. S. Marvin and F. J. Gould in the League of Nations Union, 1919–1939 145 7 The Faith of the Democrat: The Association for Education in Citizenship, 1934–1944 177 ix x CONTENTS 8 Conclusion 209 Bibliography 221 Index 239 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS ABP Papers of Sir Arthur Bryant AEC Association for Education in Citizenship BHA British Humanist Association BHAA British Humanist Association Archive BLPES British Library of Political and Economic Science BSP Brian Simon Papers CELP Civic Education League Papers CEWC Council for Education in World Citizenship DfE Department for Education EPC English Positivist Committee ESC Ethical Societies’ Chronicle ESP Papers and Correspondence of Sir Ernest Simon of Wythenshawe EW Ethical World FSMP Papers of Francis Sydney Marvin IMEC International Moral Education Congress IOP India Office Papers, British Library LEA Local Education Authority LEC Leicester Education Committee LNU League of Nations Union LPS London Positivist Society LPSP London Positivist Society Papers LSB Leicester School Board LSS Leicester Secular Society MELQ/ Moral Education League Quarterly/Moral Instruction League MILQ Quarterly MIL Moral Instruction League xi xii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS MOA Mass Observation Archive, University of Sussex NSS National Secular Society PGP Sir Patrick Geddes Papers PR Positivist Review REC Religion and Ethics Committee, League of Nations Union RLLR Record Office for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland RLNU Records of the League of Nations Union SEL Secular Education League SPES South Place Ethical Society SPMR South Place Monthly Record TNA The National Archive UES Union of Ethical Societies CHAPTER 1 Introduction A photograph pasted into Leicester Secular Society’s (LSS’s) photograph album depicts a group of over 70 children, and 12 adults, on what appears to be a Sunday School outing to the countryside. The handwritten annota- tion in the photograph album locates this image as ‘At Ulverscroft, July 1902’.