Declaration by the archbishops and bishops of England and Wales on education (1929)
1. It is no part of the normal function of the State to teach.
2. The State is entitled to see that citizens receive due education sufficient to enable them to discharge the duties of citizenship in its various degrees.
3. The State ought, therefore, to encourage every form of sound educational endeavour, and may take means to safeguard the efficiency of education.
4. To parents whose economic means are insufficient to pay for th
e education of their children, it is the duty of the State to furnish the necessary means, providing them from the common funds arising out of taxation of the whole community. But in so doing the State must not interfere with parental responsibility, nor hamper the reasonable liberty of parents in their choice of a school for their children. Above all, where the people are not all of one creed, there must be no differentiation on the ground of religion.
5. Where there is need of greater school accommodation the State may, in default of other agencies, intervene to supply it; but it may do so only ‘in default of, and in substitution for, and to the extent of, the responsibility of the parents’ of the children who need this accommodation.
6. The teacher is always acting in loco parentis, never in loco civitatis, though the State to safeguard its citizenship may take reasonable care to see that teachers are efficient.
7. Thus a teacher never is and never can be a civil servant, and should never regard himself or allow himself to be so regarded. Whatever authority he may possess to teach and control children, and to claim their respect and obedience, comes to him from God through the parents, and not through the State, except in so far as the State is acting on behalf of the parents
2. The State is entitled to see that citizens receive due education sufficient to enable them to discharge the duties of citizenship in its various degrees.
3. The State ought, therefore, to encourage every form of sound educational endeavour, and may take means to safeguard the efficiency of education.
4. To parents whose economic means are insufficient to pay for th
e education of their children, it is the duty of the State to furnish the necessary means, providing them from the common funds arising out of taxation of the whole community. But in so doing the State must not interfere with parental responsibility, nor hamper the reasonable liberty of parents in their choice of a school for their children. Above all, where the people are not all of one creed, there must be no differentiation on the ground of religion.
5. Where there is need of greater school accommodation the State may, in default of other agencies, intervene to supply it; but it may do so only ‘in default of, and in substitution for, and to the extent of, the responsibility of the parents’ of the children who need this accommodation.
6. The teacher is always acting in loco parentis, never in loco civitatis, though the State to safeguard its citizenship may take reasonable care to see that teachers are efficient.
7. Thus a teacher never is and never can be a civil servant, and should never regard himself or allow himself to be so regarded. Whatever authority he may possess to teach and control children, and to claim their respect and obedience, comes to him from God through the parents, and not through the State, except in so far as the State is acting on behalf of the parents