Moral Instruction and Training in Schools: Report of an International Inquiry

Campaigns for inclusive, useful education have always been at the heart of Humanists UK, as evidenced in the efforts of the Moral Instruction League. Founded in 1897, just one year after the Union of Ethical Societies was formed, the League sought to replace religious instruction with secular moral education in schools – a system pioneered in particular by Frederick James Gould. In 1899, a deputation from the League presented a petition to the London School Board, showing ‘that the supposition that parents are pleased with the present Bible teaching is quite unfounded in fact’. They had gathered 513 signatures, representing 1,086 scholars. Members of this deputation included Zona Vallance (inaugural Honorary Secretary of both the Union of Ethical Societies – today Humanists UK – and the Moral Instruction League), and future Prime Minister James Ramsay Macdonald. For close to two decades, the Moral Instruction League played a leading role in the call for secular moral education on a national and international scale – efforts taken up by generations of humanists after them, and in the work of Humanists UK today.