ABSTRACT
But during the 1960s controversy about the relations between church and state in the field of education continued to diminish. The constant decline in dogmatic religious belief made most of the old arguments appear irrelevant to many people, and indeed some new formulations of belief could well make an Anglican, for instance, feel that he had more in common with a Free Churchman or even a Roman Catholic than with one of his own bishops. The ecumenical movement, though it proceeded much more slowly than some wished, at least arose from recognition of the need of the churches to combat secularism together and lowered the temperature of discussion. Old grievances were seen to have become less important or to have virtually disappeared: when Free Church leaders claimed in 1959 that there might be 200 or 300 singleschool areas, the Minister for Education pointed out that in 1944 there had been ‘some 4,000’. He added that neither the Church of England nor the state would be likely to encourage the establishment of new denominational schools where this would create new single-school areas (Hansard, 608, cols. 488, 494, 495, 498).
