HL Deb 05 December 1902 vol 116 cc2-124

Order of the day for resuming te debate on the Amendment to the Motion for the Second Reading, read.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (The Marquess of LONDONDERRY)

My Lords, in his able and comprehensive speech my noble friend the Lord President of the Council, who moved the Second Reading of this Bill, drew attention to the fact that the measure had occupied in another place no less than fifty-three days, forty-six of which were spent in discussing the details. Under these circumstances it will be admitted, I think, that not only the principles but also the details of the measure were fairly and fully discussed and decided by the House of Commons. But the noble Duke, in the course of his remarks, did not draw the attention of your Lordships to the fact that these principles and details were discussed at still greater length during the great agitation in the country between August and October, when Parliament was not sitting. During the recess, as your Lordships are aware, a vast number of meetings were held throughout the country, promoted by the opponents of the measure, who, if I may use the expression, flooded the country with denunciations not only of the Government, but of those who supported the Government with regard to the Bill. I do not for a moment say that it was unjustifiable for them to do so. All I mean to draw your Lordships' attention to is the extent to which the Bill and its details have been considered in the country, and how difficult it is for me, as the Minister of Education, to attempt on this important and interesting occasion to say anything new. I do not in the least object to the denunciations, and I do not object to the agitation. I allow that it was conducted by people who had a perfect right to act as they did, but I do not equally allow that the denunciations were of a sincere character. If they had been sincere, I think that during the campaign which has been directed against the Government we should have heard a few sentences uttered on behalf of the children, whose interests this Bill is supposed to safeguard. But we have heard no word uttered in the interest of the children. On the contrary, the Government have been denounced to such an extent that I used to think the agitation was got tip in accordance with the words of Sir William Harcourt, who said at Ebbw Vale— The Government are giving us a rallying cry in the Education Bill. The noble Lord opposite, Lord Monks-well, laid great stress in the course of his speech last night on the effect that that agitation had produced. I have no doubt that at the time the agitation had a great effect, but I agree with the right rev. Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle, who stated last night that the weight of the agitation had considerably lessened. Moreover, I think that the explanation of the detail and principle of the Bill which the Prime Minister gave at Manchester, combined with the recent exposition of the details of the measure in Parliament, have opened the eyes of the country as to the real merits of the Bill. I think the question is now for the first time really understood, and the country realises that this measure is brought forward, not with a political or Party object, but in order to raise the whole standard of education in this country. The country must now realise the absolute truth of the saying of one of our great Ministers— You may fool all people sometimes; you may fool some people all times; but you cannot fool all people all times. Therefore I venture to say that the agitation on which Lord Monkswell laid so much stress last night has been found out; because the people of this country now for the first time really understand the details of this great Bill.

The charge has often been made against His Majesty's Government that they were not justified in introducing such a measure as this because they had not received a mandate from the country. I should like to ask, when did the country ever issue a direct mandate to the Government to bring forward a particular measure? At the General Election of 1868, although the country issued a mandate to the Liberal Party to disestablish the Irish Church, no mandate was given to initiate the Education Bill of 1870. At the General Election of 1885 no mandate whatever was given to the Liberal Government to introduce the Home Rule Bill of 1886. I do not think noble Lords opposite will contradict me when I say that the Home Rule Bill came like a bombshell into the Liberal Party. 1 allow, though it is open to argument, that a certain mandate was given to introduce the Home Rule Bill of 1893; but I maintain that there was no mandate for the introduction of the financial proposals of the Government of that day. Therefore if noble Lords opposite and their supporters lay down a hard and fast rule that no measure is to be introduced unless it is a prominent plank in the platform at the previous General Election, we may find ourselves in a position in which no grievance could be remedied and no absolutely necessary reform accomplished unless it was a specific plank in the platform on which the election was fought. But I maintain that no such charge can be made in regard to this measure. I do not deny that the conclusion of the war and the future settlement of South Africa were the chief planks in the platform at the last General Election. But the country knew full well the views the Government entertained with regard to education, and it cannot be said that the Bill has been sprung upon the country. In these circumstances, His Majesty's Government, realising as they have done for five years past, that it was necessary to deal with the question, would have been unworthy of the confidence of the country had they not dealt with the question and endeavoured to place education on a sure foundation. In my opinion, and I am borne out by experts on the subject, this country is behind the age in education. Our present position is one of absolute chaos; and owing to the confusion which exists there is expense which to my mind could be obviated. This is not only the opinion of myself and of those with whom I am closely associated. Professor Armstrong, an educationist who is in no way biased has declared that there are many people who are convinced that in not a few respects School Boards have been disastrous failures; and we need a wider organisation, penetrated with sounder and especially more practical views. Many gentlemen associated with noble Lords opposite have declared in public that the present system is unsatisfactory. It was the duty of the Government to remedy this state of things. The question of education could not be left alone. I consider that the present Government are the only parties able to deal with the of question. I do not think that the noble Lords opposite, even if they occupied our position tomorrow, could deal satisfactorily with the question. The noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition dissents. I should like him to define the position he would take occupied the position of the noble Duke behind me.

Mr. Bryce, an educational expert of whom I speak with the greatest respect and admiration, told us in the House of Commons that he had a scheme for dealing with education, but that owing to the despotic character of the measures of the Prime Minister he had not had an opportunity of producing it. But that need not prevent noble Lords opposite making known the manner in which the problem should be dealt with. Speaking at Derby a short time ago, the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition stated that if a Liberal Government were formed they would be ordered by their constituents, and would joyfully and willingly carry out the mandate, to reject what was wrong in this measure and to put education on a broad, liberal, and satisfactory basis. I hope we shall hear from noble Lords opposite what is the satisfactory basis on which they propose to put educational legislation. I should like to ask, in the first place, whether they would establish universal School Boards? The noble Earl shakes his head. I do not think they could do that. A great number of the followers of the noble Earl are ardent supporters of the voluntary school system, Do noble Lords opposite propose to allow the voluntary schools to be squeezed out of existence? Do they propose that the instruction of the two and a half million children who are at present being educated in voluntary schools should stop? Do they propose to lose the £840,000—this was the sum last year—subscribed by the promoters of voluntary schools and which has been used annually for the benefit of the ratepayers in the education of the children? And again, I should like to ask what they propose to do with regard to the buildings which at the present moment belong to the voluntary school managers, even supposing that the latter would agree to sell those buildings to the local authorities. What is their definition of area? They tell us that the country area is too large and that the parish area is too small. We have defined to the best of our ability a convenient area, and it would be interesting to know the definition of area of those who have criticised our proposal.

EARL SPENCER

I stated my view on the subject of the area last night.

THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY

I do not think the noble Earl told us his definition.

EARL SPENCER

Yes; I suggested that it should be smaller than the County Council area, larger than the Parish Council, and on the lines of Rural District Councils. I have given that opinion time after time.

THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY

But is that the opinion of the noble Earl's Party?

EARL SPENCER

I cannot say that.

THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY

What I maintain is that the Party opposite, instead of producing a counter scheme, criticise the scheme of the Government. I do not profess to believe that the present measure is perfect, but I say that with the material on which we have had to work we have endeavoured to place the question of education on a sound and secure basis. We have endeavoured not to destroy the Act of 1870, but to remedy it and fill up the gaps. I deny that the Bill deserves to be denounced as a disgraceful measure. There are certain members belonging to the noble Earl's Party who do not share the extreme views which have been expressed on this subject, and the London School Board, a body with which I was once associated, and for which I have the greatest admiration, on June 12 last expressed their approval of the policy contained in the Bill. The resolution which they passed was in the following words:— This Board approves the policy of the Education Bill recently introduced by the Government, whereby, while preserving the present right of: voluntary schools to give denominational religious instruction, such schools are in other respects brought under the control of the same authority as other elementary schools, and will participate in the rate raised by such authority, and they ask that the same principle may be applied to London. Well, my Lords, after such a resolution as that, passed by the greatest School Board in this country, are we justified in believing that the Bill we are asking your Lordships to accept is an infamous and monstrous Bill brought forward only for political purposes? I contend that on the rural side, School Board education has shown weaknesses. Mr. Bryce, on June 2, dwelt on the importance of establishing larger administrative areas for elementary education than those of the present rural School Boards. Mr. Trevelyan confessed on the same day that to improve the education in our villages we require to have more than local interest. "The wider the area of choice, the better the chance," said Mr.Trevelyan, "of getting good men."

In some places the School Board rates have gone up to a high figure, altogether beyond anything contemplated by Mr. Forster in 1870. In Buckinghamshire, for example, there is one School Board with a rate of 2s. Id. in the £; in Cornwall there is a parish with a rate of Is. 10d. in the £; and the School Board rate in two parishes in Durham is Is. 9d. and Is. lOd. in the £ respectively. In Essex we have one parish School Board with a rate of nearly 3s. in the £, and two other rural parishes with rates of Is. 11d. and 2s. 3d. respectively. In the Forest of Dean there is a School Board rate of 2s. 6d. The rating question is also a serious one in the urban areas. For instance, West Ham has a School Board rate of nearly 2s. 2d. Walthamstow and Wanstead have also a rate of more than Is. 8d., while the county borough of Oldham has a rate of Is. 9d. Mr. Forster's utterances in 1870 enable us to realise how ideas have been modified with the enormous increase that has taken place in the rates since the Education Bill of that year was passed. In explaining the provisions of the Bill. Mr. Forster said that the rate would not exceed 3d. in the £, and that he did not believe that it would amount to anything like that in the majority of cases. Mr. Gladstone was also of opinion that the rate would not come to 3d. in the £. As to the School Boards in great towns, without wishing to say anything detrimental of them, I consider that their great energy has been directed rather to extending their range than to improving the quality of the education which they were created to supply. I do not in the least blame them. 1 would be the last person in the world to censure anybody for any superfluity of energy. But what has been the result? That energy has caused those School Boards to realise the need for higher education in their districts, and they have endeavoured to supply it. They have in this way gone beyond the functions originally entrusted to them and have acted illegally, and in order to indemnify them a transitory measure had to be passed through Parliament, under which they were enabled to carry on the duties they had undertaken the cessation of which would have had disastrous results. The school Boards of these towns were giving technical instruction at the same time as the municipal authorities, with the result that the rates suffered from the inroads of both bodies. There has, accordingly, been gross overlapping and unnecessary expense, which the present Bill will obviate. In support of my statement as to overlapping and the unnecessary expense to which the ratepayers have been put, I will quote Dr. Macnamara, a member of the other House, and an educationist, whom I am glad to think I can count as a friend of my own, though he is opposed to me politically. Dr. Macnamara said:— What is the first thing this Bill does? it seeks to set up in each locality an education authority capable of countrolling all grades of schools within the area. if this could be achieved on right lines a tremendous educational reform would have been effected. After describing the present system, Dr. Macnamara went on to say— 'What are the direct results of all this hotehpotch of local government? The first is a waste of a large amount of public money in the unnecessary and extravagant duplication of administrative machinery. I ask the House whether we should have been justified in allowing that condition of things to remain without making some attempt to remedy it?

I pass on to the charges that have been brought against the Government. The two main charges are, firstly, that we are destroying School Boards; and, secondly, that we are giving undue benefits to voluntary schools. As to the destruction of School Boards, let me say at once that I have had experience of the great work done by the London School Board, of which work I have the sincerest admiration, and that I would not be favourable to a measure which would eliminate the services of the educationalists who have acted on such bodies. It has been started that the new education authorities will lose a great deal by not having these experienced men at the head of affairs in the future. I repeat that if I thought the men connected with the School Boards in the large towns were to be debarred from taking a prominent part in the education of this country I should not be standing here to-night supporting a Bill which would have that result. If the noble Earl had closely examined the Bill he would have seen that sub-Section 2 (d) of Clause 18 lays great stress on the fact that the Government invite and welcome the co-operation of the leading members of School Boards. The sub-Section reads: Every such scheme shall provide for the appointment, if desirable, of members of School Boards existing at the time of the passing of this Act as members of the first Committee.

EARL SPENCER

Yes, but they are to be co-opted.

THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY

But I think I have answered the contention of the noble Earl that we were excluding those people on the present School Boards who have rendered such enormous service to the country, and whose services we shall welcome most heartily in the future. The present School Board system is not, I contend, entirely and truly representative. The cumulative vote does not guarantee the return of the best men, and it enables small minorities to elect men who are not fitted for the work. I had placed in my hand tonight particulars of a case in which, by means of the cumulative vote, an entirely unfit person has been elected on the School Board of a great country borough, and that the Board had been compelled for their own protection to approach the Board of Education for advice. This bears out my contention that the cumulative vote does not ensure the return to the School Boards of representative men. I do not think the School Board system, however much we may admire it now, would have been brought into existence by the Education Act of 1870 had there then been the bodies which exist now. I wish to emphasise that by quoting from the speech made by Mr. Forster in introducing this measure. Mr. Forster said— The electoral body we have chosen for the towns is the Town Council. I do not think there can be much dispute upon that point. In the country we have taken the best body we can find—the select vestry where is one, and the vestry where there is not a select vestry. Mr. Forster admitted that in deciding between the union and the parish as the area of consideration there was a difficulty, and the reason why there was a difficulty was almost a disgrace to this country. Mr. Forester said— We are behind almost every other eivilised country, whether in America or on the Continent of Europe, in respect of rural municipal organisations, and this difficulty meets us not only in connection with education but with many other questions affecting the people. The same difficulty applies to London. It was in consequence of the weakness of the proposal as regards the parishes in London that a single Board for London had to be adopted, and for the sake of uniformity the same course was pursued in the towns. This proves, beyond all doubt, that Mr. Forster would not have created School Boards had there been the bodies which are in existence now. These municipal bodies had had various duties and responsibilities entrusted to them, among which education has already been included. The noble Lord opposite, Earl Spencer, in the course of his speech last night, seemed to consider that the duties we are imposing on these great bodies should not be given to them, because they have quite sufficient work to do already. The noble Earl said— I think they have enough to do, and I think they ought not to have the work which belongs to the School Boards thrust upon them. I believe that will place them in great difficulties indeed.

EARL SPENCER

Hear, hear.

THE MARQUESS OF LONDON-DERRY

I am not competent to cross swords with the noble Earl, and I will leave to the noble Earl the late Liberal Prime Minister the task of answering my noble friend on that point. Lord Rosebery, in giving his impressions of this Bill a short time ago, described the supervision of education as a prerogative of the municipal Councils of incalculable importance, and said that if they had added to what they do already the task of supervising education they would be advancing by leaps and bounds that lofty position to which every patriot desired the great municipalities to attain. I am certain that the noble Earl below the gangway will make good tonight the remarks he then made, and therefore the noble Earl opposite must not blame me if I leave the defence of the Bill in that respect in the late Liberal Prime Minister's hands.

My noble friend Earl Spencer went on to criticise the Bill for placing extra duties on the County Councils, and stated that it would be perfectly impossible for them as the education authorities to control the whole of the education of the country. But we are supported on this point by the County Councils Association, which passed the following resolution on May 7, on the motion of the Chairman of the Surrey County Council:— That, without expressing any opinion on the controversial questions raised by the Education Bill, the proposals contained in that Bill to place the control of all education in administrative counties under local educational authorities meet with the general approval of this Association, and that, as regards administrative counties, the County Councils, acting through committees, a majority of whom should be members of the Council, as the education authorities are well qualified, and prepared, if so requested by Parliament, to undertake the powers and duties imposed upon those authorities by the Bill. Therefore, with regard to the boroughs I leave the noble Earl to the tender mercy of Lord Rosebery, and with regard to the counties to the tender mercy of the County Councils Association. I contend that an enormous gain will accrue from giving the controlling power over education in the locality to the borough or the County Council. There will be a great gain in efficiency by coordinating under one authority the dual authority now existing. Great economy in various ways will also result. My noble friend Viscount Goschen last night, in a speech which I am sure your Lordships will agree was a most valuable contribution to the debate, criticised the provision in reference to inspectors. The noble Viscount asked— Were they to have inspectors appointed by the local authority? The noble Duke the Lord President of the Council having interposed a remark which is not reported, the noble Viscount said— Oh, then they might inspect, and a pretty inspection that would be. They had already the Government inspectors and now there were to be two despots—a central despot and a local despot. I would join with my noble friend in deprecating any expense that may be incurred by having too many inspectors, and I will do my utmost to reduce the cost of the inspectorate to the lowest degree compatible with the efficiency of its work. I would point out, however, that the Bill does not make it compulsory on the local authority to inspect the schools, and my great aim and object will be to induce the local authority to co-operate with the Board of Education in regard to these duties. I am most anxious to place the inspection of the Board of Education at the disposal of the local authority, and, by hearty co-operation between the two bodies, to reduce the expense in every possible way. I can assure my noble friend that his words will carry great weight with the Government, and, I think, also with the local authorities.

The second charge made against the Bill is that it unduly benefits the Voluntary schools to the detriment of other religious bodies. I deny that in toto. I should like to say a word in defence of these voluntary schools, of which I have always been an ardent supporter and admirer. I am an ardent admirer of them because without their aid there would have been no elementary education whatever in this country. Therefore I say that all educationists, no matter what their political or religious creed may be, owe a debt of gratitude to those who were responsible for the formation of the voluntary schools. It is not, perhaps, known that until 1833 the voluntary schools alone carried on the work of elementary education without State aid or assistance of any kind. There is another statement made with regard to voluntary schools. We are told by those who oppose the voluntary school system that the voluntary schools, as they exist at the present moment, are not owned wholly by their present proprietors, but are partly owned by the State. I admit that there is dual ownership, but it is an infinitesimal ownership on tho part of the State. Out of the £25,000,000 which the 14,000 voluntary schools of the country are supposed to represent, the sum contributed by the State is only £1,845,000. Not only would the ratepayers suffer an enormous loss if they were called upon to provide the deficit which would arise if the voluntary schools were abolished, but there would in that case be the grossest betrayal of those who have been responsible for the education of the rising generation of the country. His Majesty's Government would have been unworthy of their position had they not endeavoured to maintain the efficiency of those schools. Did the Act of 1870 ever intend to abolish voluntary schools? It intended to do nothing of the sort. As to the intentions of that Act, Mr. Forster said in the course of his opening speech in introducing the measure— Our object is to complete the voluntary system, to fill up gaps, sparing the public money when it can be done. The original intention of the Act was to take every advantage of the voluntary schools. Mr. Gladstone, in withdrawing the rate-aid proposal, said:— We must fulfil the engagements we have already entered into wiih the voluntary schools that in their competition with rate schools they shall receive some assistance towards lightening the burden of their expenditure. In view of the result of the competition of the board schools on the voluntary schools, it should be borne in mind that the intention of the Act of 1870 was never that the voluntary schools should be abolished or squeezed out. It is said, but I cannot believe it, that certain sections of the community have declared that they will not pay rates in support of the voluntary schools. As I say, I can scarcely believe it; but have those who declare such an intention forgotten that since 1870 the promoters of the voluntary schools have not only maintained their own schools, but have ungrudgingly paid whatever rates the School Board in the district may have insisted upon? How, then, can these Nonconformists now refuse to assist the voluntary schools?

I now leave the whole question of elementary education, and turn to secondary education. We have been told that thi measure confers no benefit on secondary education. I do not know if that statement is endorsed by noble Lords opposite, but, if it is, they will find that they are not supported in that view by one of the most able members of their Party, Sir Edward Grey, who said at Sheffield that he had no quarrel with that part of the Bill which dealt with higher education. So far as it lay in our power we have made proposals which will be to the advantage of secondary education. We have given powers of levying rates for this purpose to the county boroughs and the county authorities. We have definitely ear-marked what is known as the whisky money for education. I maintain also that the new elementary grants will indirectly benefit secondary education, because, by saving the rates, it enables the authorities to spend the money which it would otherwise have had to raise on secondary education. The local authority has also been given a free hand in the training of teachers. The noble Earl opposite, Earl Spencer, stated that the training colleges would be a charge on the rates, and expressed the opinion that the Exchequer should find the greater part of the money. I think the noble Earl cannot have realised the provisions of the Code. The Exchequer grant will be available for training colleges supported by county authorities and which fulfil the requirements, and therefore the county will be under no extra burden. It may be said that those who are trained in these institutions may go to other districts, but we hope that the county authorities will combine so as fitly to supply their own areas with thoroughly well trained teachers.

There are two other questions with regard to secondary education which I have been asked to answer by my noble friends Viscount Goschen and Lord Harris. The noble Viscount asked me what the Board of Education considered necessary as to provision for higher education, and Lord Harris inquired whether we were going to force the County Council to levy a rate. The Board of Education desire to lay down no hard and fast rule as to what is necessary in any question of higher education, as the type and the amount must vary with the needs of each area. With regard to the suggestion that the Board of Education may adopt a compulsory attitude, I would remind your Lordships that that Board is merely an advisory body. The first part of Clause 2, Part II., reads:— The local education authority shall consider the educational needs of their area and take such steps as seem to them desirable, after consultation with the Board of Education. The Board of Education are not bound to take up a compulsory attitude.

LORD HARRIS

Under Clause 10.

THE MARQUESS OF LONDON-DERRY

It is the same principle. The Board of Education are merely an advisory body. They have no power to compel my noble friend and his County Council to raise any rate, but if they choose to apply to them for advice it will be given. I do not believe it possible that the local authorities will refuse to administer the Act; to do so would be to relinquish great advantages, for they would no longer have control over any of the schools, whereas if they adopt the scheme they have complete control over secular education in every school. Neither do I share the view that the Nonconformists receive no benefit under the Bill. I have a very soft place in my heart for Nonconformists. I know the great work they have done, and I should be the last person to see an injustice inflicted upon them. I consider that they derive considerable advantages under this Bill, and I would instance the provision whereby pupil teacherships are open to them.

I have endeavoured in the speech I have made tonight to deal with the various charges that have been brought against this measure. I have endeavoured to prove to the House that His Majesty's Government have tried to deal honestly and justly with all classes and all creeds. When this Bill becomes law, as I have every reason to imagine it will, important duties and great responsibilities will devolve upon the Board over which I have the honour to preside. I know full well that I am unworthy of that position. I know full well that the noble Earl below the Gangway, Lord Rosebery, regards me as singularly unfitted for my post. He need not shake his head. I do not deny it. But I can say on behalf of myself and of those with whom l am associated, that we will do our utmost to discharge the duties and responsibilities which devolve upon us, not only efficiently but with absolute impartiality. We would, welcome the co - operation and assistance of those local bodies on whom, in a minor degree, are also imposed new duties and responsibilities, and of all classes of the community who have the real interest of education at heart. I may be optimistic, I may be sanguine, but I have a strong conviction that this measure will deal satisfactorily for a long time to come with the question of education. I believe that the agitation which took place in the autumn, and to which I have alluded, will, beyond all doubt, calm down; and I believe that all those prognostications that were then made as to the ruin and disaster that must ensue if the Bill became law will not be fulfilled. I am confident that when the Bill becomes law we shall see all classes of the community, whether political or religious, striving to achieve the end we all wish to attain, and that the Nonconformist lion will work with the Anglican lamb with the simple desire to promote the welfare of the children of the country. If that should be so, I think the historian of the future will declare that in carrying this measure the Government has been endeavouring to live up to the well-known words of the poet— 'Tis education forms for common mind, Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined.

LORD TWEEDMOUTH

My Lords, may I venture to congratulate the noble Marquess who has just sat down on the ready and easy way in which he has fallen into the duties of his new office. For the bantling which lies exposed before us the noble Marquess is not responsible. We, on this side of the House, are not privileged to know who is its mother. We know it was brought into the world by the hands of the noble Duke and the Prime Minister, with the assistance of a conclave of episcopal matrons. Now that the infant has obtained some strength, it is to be handed over to the noble Marquess as the dry nurse, I suppose. He is discharging his duties to it pleasantly. It is satisfactory to see that he is pleased with the beauty and the perfections of the little creature, though to us it seems plain enough that it is neither very healthy nor likely to have a long life. The noble Marquess, in opening his speech, advanced three propositions, to all of which I must take some exception. The noble Marquess set out that there had been a superfluity of discussion in the House of Commons, and that the action of the Government in forcibly bringing that discussion to a close was justifiable. There I entirely differ from the noble Marquess. The Prime Minister himself admitted, when he proposed measures for closuring the debate in the House of Commons, that the discussion in that House had been of a singularly unobstructive and interesting character. I think also some blame is due to the Government in that they had not brought this measure forward at an earlier period of the session, but had wasted those more fruitful hours of the session on a futile attempt to reform the procedure of the House of Commons. I think also that members of the Government might have remembered that many of those speeches which were shut out from discussion in the House of Commons, both in Committee and on Report, were speeches connected with the finance of this Bill, which we in this House were precluded from discussing or amending. I think that that consideration also should have induced them to have extended to the utmost limit liberty to the Members of the House of Commons to discuss this Bill fully, and to deal with it in the most complete manner.

Again, the noble Marquess alleged a want of sincerity in the agitation against this Bill which has been going on in the country. I think that was hardly a worthy insinuation on his part. We who dispute the justice of this Bill are quite ready to admit the sincerity of those who bring it forward and support it. We believe — nay, more, we know—that more than half the people of this country are bitterly opposed to this Bill, and we believe and know that the opposition to the measure has in no way been wanting in sincerity, but has arisen from a deep sense of the injury that is likely to accrue from it. The noble Marquess suggested that there had been shown throughout this discussion a want of solicitude for education and the interests of the children. There, again, I join issue with him. I think that if he will study the debates that have taken place, he will find that both of those points have been kept well to the front in the speeches in the other House, and he will find that they have been constantly put forward in speeches that have been made by opponents of this measure on the public platform. The noble Marquess then went on to find fault with my noble friend beside me, and also with the Opposition, because we did not define our policy and say what we should be prepared to do supposing we were sitting on the Benches opposite. In that respect he rather echoed some remarks made by Viscount Goschen, and a claim made by the noble Duke when he said, "Tell us what you would do with the voluntary schools?" Those three noble Lords have all had the same advantage as I have myself of experience in the other House, and I always thought it was an accepted maxim in the House of Commons that it was the duty of an Opposition to oppose and not to propose.

I am not going to tell noble Lords exactly what we should do if we were in their place. But I will go as far as this. I do not mind saying what I should have advised the Government to have done if I had been taken into their consultation. The late colleague of the noble Duke in a secondary capacity, Sir John Gorst, recently said in a public speech:— There is no doubt that unless we intend the English people to become hewers of wood and drawers of water for the world, we must make them as well prepared for the work they have to do as are foreign workmen. In that sentence you have confessed the lamentable fact that as things now are our people are being worse educated than those of other nations, let us say of Germany and America, who are our most serious commercial rivals. That is the state of things we have to meet. That state of things will not be met by some improvement in our elementary education. You will have to go further than that. What you have to do is to improve that higher education which follows on elementary education and goes step by step from the elementary school to the university. I have said that the course His Majesty's Government have pursued is not one that I should have advised. I should have advised them to have taken the great settlement of 1870 as the basis of their proposals. I would not have disturbed that compromise. I would have made it the foundation of my system, and on that system and that compromise I should have endeavoured to have built up a great edifice for higher education, which would have given prospect of attaining some of the objects that we desire. I think that would have been a reasonable course to take. After all, the compromise of 1870 is one that has been acted upon and has turned out fairly well. We have, in consequence of it, established a fair system of elementary education, a system which has gone on improving from year to year; and I think that in the course of those thirty years the very bodies for whom this Bill is to be a still further relief—I mean the voluntary schools of this country—have gained no small advantages. As the Bill of 1870 first stood they had to put down shilling for shilling, and pound for pound, the same amount of money that was given them from the Government grant. That is all changed now. First you had the fee grants, then the establishment of the 17s. 6d. limit, then you had the aid grants, next the relief of the voluntary schools from rates, and you have had the block grant. You have had many small bits of assistance from the Department itself, and I am confident that I am in no way over-estimating the relief given since 1870 at at least £1,500,000 annually. I should have thought the Government would have done well to have accomplished something more in the way of strengthening and improving this system, founded on compromise, and which had acted well, rather than throw the whole of our elementary education into the melting pot and endeavour to build up the edifice again from the bottom. That has been the policy of His Majesty's Government and we shall see in the future what the result of it will be. They will in due course have their reward.

When I come to examine as far as I can from the proposals of this Bill what is likely to be the result, from an educational point of view, I cannot say that I see any sort of security that great educational improvement is likely to ensue. The Bill seems to me to give no security whatever for improvement in education, whether it be elementary or secondary. You undoubtedly set up an entirely new series of authorities, but I do not see that in this Bill there is any guarantee that those new authorities will use their powers in order to improve the elementary education of the country. This is the view of a man who, at any rate, has some great knowledge of education, Sir Joshua Fitch. He says— This Bill does nothing to secure, or even to suggest, improvement in education or to secure for children better teaching or better opportunities for intellectual advancement. In so far as elementary education is affected the Bill affords little or no help. It gives no motives to managers, denominational or otherwise, to exert themselves or to raise the standard of education, but it offers new encouragement and aid to the denominational system and gives to that system, though it is less and less in favour of the nation as a whole, a fresh lease of life. What guarantee have we for the manner in which these new authorities will use their power? Will they raise the standard of the voluntary schools to that of the present board schools, or will they bring down the average standard of the present board schools to that of the voluntary schools, or will they endeavour to bring them both to some mean between the two? I do not see that any indication is given in this Bill as to the method in which they are to discharge their duties.

I come to the secondary education part of the Bill. There, again, I say there is no sort of mandatory direction in the Clause referring to it which will compel the local education authority to take really effective steps. I know that the noble Duke disputed that last night. It is true they are told to consider the educational needs of their area, and to take such steps as seem to them desirable; but if they consider that steps are not desirable, there is no sentence within that Clause which gives ant power to compel them to take any steps at all. I think that that view is borne out even by words that fell from noble Lords last night. The most rev. Prelate the Archbishop of Canterbury told us that so far as secondary education was concerned the Bill was very meagre. My noble friend Viscount Goschen described its intention as obscure, and said he would be glad to ascertain the goal which was being aimed at; whilst the Government's own chief supporter in the Press, The Times, only two mornings ago wrote of the Bill that it Leaves the problems of secondary education in many respects almost untouched. The noble Marquess has made a great point against us with regard to the question of mandate. For my own part, so far as the question of education is concerned, the matter of mandate weighs with me very little indeed. It may be that the Government had no mandate to deal with local government in the manner that they have. It may be that they had no mandate to take so much control over the expenditure of public money from the people as they have. But, so far as education is concerned, I think that the mandate lies on this Government, on any Government, to deal in the best way possible with the education of the people. I think that on both sides of the House we are agreed that education is a subject that we all must try our hands at. The noble Earl who sits below the Gangway, even in his Chesterfield speech, rightly declared that the subject of education was one of those subjects on which all Liberals should concentrate.

I have no fault to find with the Government dealing with the question of education It is to the methods and to the principles which have been applied in this Bill that I take exception. I say that if the methods and principles which are to be found in this Bill are given effect to by an Act of Parliament, then this Bill will serve only to perpetuate and aggravate the greatest blot in our system, the greatest hindrance to efficiency—I mean, the sectarian character of a large proportion of our State-aided schools. The Established Church of England has always insisted on making the teaching of its own particular doctrines the paramount object of education. That has been their policy from an early period. The first report of the National Society says that The national religion should be the foundation of a national education, and should be the first and chief thing taught to the poor according to the instructions provided by our Church for that purpose. In the House of Commons Lord Hugh Cecil, in other words, laid down the same principle when he declaimed that every school should have two doors—the one through which the pupils should be forced by the compulsory powers of the State, and the other the one by which they should be sent out by the education given in the school into the Church. To this principle, I think, is largely due the present state of the schools in this country, for in order to secure the teaching of their own particular doctrine the English Established Church—and I find, no fault with the work that it has done in this direction—have covered the country with schools of its own, and in these schools education has only too often been inefficient because, from lack of funds, there has been a difficulty in providing good teachers to sufficiently well equip the schools. It is essentially the sectarian difficulty which has prevented the nation from uniting as a body on a national system such as America possesses. There are in America something like 16,000,000 children attending schools provided by the State at a cost of something like £43,000,000 a year. I think that the sectarian spirit, encouraged by this system of voluntary schools, has been the real cause of most of our difficulty. It has divided people who ought to have been united. It has set men wrangling over doctrine when they ought to have been discussing education. It has sacrificed the education of our children to the rivalries of our Churches. I come from the north of the Tweed, and we there consider that we are far ahead of England in the matter of education. That may be so or not. We think so. And yet we are there, I think, fond of theological controversy. In spite of that, I believe that the reason to which can be attributed the success of our education in Scotland is that we have in our education been freed from sectarian controversies, and that we have been enabled to set up over the whole length and breadth of the country universal School Boards, under which children have been given thoroughly good elementary education.

As to the operation of this Bill, I wish to say a few words. What does the Bill do? First of all, it abolishes School Boards. The noble Marquess disputed that fact. I will refer him, in support of my contention, to a single line in the Bill at the top of page 3, which runs— School Boards and School Attendance Committees shall be abolished. Well, these Boards to whom education in England has been so greatly indebted are to go. I do not think that anybody will dispute the fact that the School Boards have greatly raised the level and the standard of education. I think those who support voluntary schools will admit that our School Board system has done a great deal to raise the ordinary standard of education. The School Boards are to be abolished, and what is to take their place? Not a body directly elected by the people for the purpose. That has been surely one of the best features of the School Board system. From the people, from the parents of the children who attend the schools, the School Boards have sprung, and to the people, and to the parents of those who attend the schools, the School Boards have been responsible, both in respect of their action and their expenditure. But under this Bill there is to be no more of that. The School Boards are to go, and in their place is to be set up a sort of three-headed authority which is to be kept in check by the Education Department. First, my Lords, you have an education authority consisting of the County and Borough Councils. I repeat what my noble friend beside me (Earl Spencer) said last night. Have not these County and Borough Councils sufficient to do already? Are not their hands fairly full with the work already entrusted to them? Do you not run the risk of over-loading with work men who are already rather hard pressed to discharge their duties, and who discharge them free of recompense, men of whom the best have many other occupations and much other business to attend to? Are you sure that these Councils as they are constituted have any particular knowledge of or aptitude for educational work?

And, again, taking the County Council, I ask how is it possible that a great County Council can make itself acquainted with all the needs and necessities of every small school within its area? It has been calculated that, supposing the County Council of the great West Riding of Yorkshire were to attempt to visit the elementary schools within its area, it would take it a year to go round and pay a single visit to each school. After all, I suppose the functions that will appertain to the County Council, as the education authority, will be little more than financial. It will have to raise the rate; it will have to distribute the rate and the Parliamentary grant; but the real work will, I suppose, fall on the education committees. Now, what am I to say about the formation of those education committees? It is claimed, I know, that they are really representative bodies. It is an extraordinary thing that noble Lords on the other side, including members of the Government, appear not to be able to distinguish the great difference there is between a directly elected body, and one that is indirectly elected, and which Consists largely, if not entirely, of co-opted members. Apparently it is part of the policy of the present Government to substitute for directly elected bodies, not only for education but for other purposes, bodies of this nondescript and unrepresentative character. These committees are to consist, in the first instance, of a majority of members appointed by the Council, and, though that is the case, the Council, if it so pleases, may be able to name its entire number of members without including one of its own body. I do not mean to say that that will be the usual case, but it can do that if it so chooses. Then we come to the rest of the members of the education committee. In the Bill there is no direction whatever as to how these various men are to be chosen. Four or five different classes of members are suggested, but as to how they are to be chosen, what their comparative number is to be, who they are to represent, who is to nominate them, we have no sort of instruction whatever; and it is only as one of this class of co-opted persons that women find a place at all within the scheme of the Bill. Women deeply feel the fact that they are by this Bill excluded from direct election to one of the most important bodies in whose work a woman can take part. To these authorities is added yet another authority—the board of managers. In both sets of schools managers are to be appointed who are to perform certain equally undefined duties.

You have, then, this hierarchy of authorities. You have the education authority, you have the education committee, and you have the managers, and to keep them all in order you have the Education Department, which is weakened in its power of controlling the various authorities, because it has given up two important powers—namely, the power of declaring default and the power of compelling the local authorities to provide sufficient school places. What an opportunity for rivalries, jealousies, and difficulties between these various authorities! There is no definition of the respective duties of these authorities. It is said that the education authority is to be supreme, that the Education Committee is to control and that the managers are to manage; but no attempt is made to define either what control is, or what management is. I do think that great confusion must ensue from administration under these authorities. To these various authorities are to be handed over, not only the present board schools, which hereafter will be known as provided schools, but also the voluntary schools. In future the support of both these classes of schools is to come on the rates. Heretofore the denominational schools have been supported partly by Government grant and partly by subscriptions from those interested in them. That is why in many places School Boards have not been set up. It has been said that it would be cheaper to maintain and to keep the voluntary schools. That has always been threatened. The population of a particular district have been told:—"If you set up a School Board you will find it more expensive. You will have to pay rates, whereas now the school can be managed in a cheaper manner, and only those who choose to subscribe need have any expense put upon them." It seems to me that now arises a somewhat important question. You have taken from the voluntary subscribers and given to the ratepayers the charge of these schools. But who is to be responsible for the religious instruction given in them? Not the ratepayers, not the representatives of those who pay, not the Education Department as representative of the taxpayers, not the County or the Borough Council, not the Education Committee. The decision as to the management of the religious teaching, as to the appoiontment of teachers completely from top to bottom, as to the profession of faith of those teachers—all this is to be given to the present managers, to the clergy and to their friends, with this exception only, that to the foundation managers are to be added two managers appointed by the education committee. So that from this time henceforth the Church party are always to be in a majority on the management of these schools, and it will be in their power to secure that no Nonconformist, but only Church of England teachers, are appointed, and that the special doctrines of the Church of England are taught, and this though the school has become a public school supported by the people as a whole, Churchmen and Nonconformists alike.

It seems to me that here is the glaring injustice of the Bill. The people are to be rated for education which they do not control, and not only that, but for education which is sectarian in its character. It seems to me that these are violations of two great democratic principles. I hold, first, that the people should control that which they pay for; and, secondly, that rates levied from the people should not be applied to sectarian bodies. I heard it laid down from the other side of the House last night that representation should go with taxation. It seems to me an astonishing thing that one should have to dwell on so elementary a principle of government and to find that at this time of day in England this principle should be so gratuitously violated. We are rated for Town Councils and County Councils, but we have the control; we are rated for boards of guardians, but we have the control of those bodies; we have been rated for School Boards, but we have the control of those authorities. All these bodies are responsible to the ratepayers, but under this Bill we are to have schools for which we are rated, but over whose actual management we are to have little or no control. It is, indeed, true that the education authorities are to raise the money, but it is the education committees and the managers who will have the spending of it, and over their action we have no control whatever. Let me look for a moment at the second principle violated, which is that rates levied upon the people should not be applied to sectarian objects. I thought that was a ground on which the battle had been fought to a finish long ago. Nonconformists of two or three generations ago declared that they would not pay Church rates. They objected, and in support of that contention some of them suffered loss of goods and some of them were sent to prison. By their sacrifices Church rates were abolished, and yet here we are going to have renewed this system which we had thought had gone for good. Now, forsooth, men of all creeds and no creeds are to be rated for the teaching of the dogmas of a particular Church. The Church of England has in this country some 13,000 schools in which Church doctrines are taught. I do not for a moment dispute the right of the Church to teach those doctrines. They have the entire right to do so, but they should teach them at their own expense. Under this Bill it is proposed that they should do so at our expense. That is a proposition which I for my part cannot accept, and it is one which I do not believe will be accepted by the majority of the country. It is, I think, a somewhat significant thing—a thing which deserves some consideration—that in this House, which contains two Estates of the Realm, there should be found perhaps only fifteen or twenty men who voice the opinion which is that of the majority of the people of the country.

The noble Duke and the Members of the Government have a distinguished colleague who is now on his way as a messenger of peace to the other side of the world. I say, God speed him on that errand. Perhaps his view may have some influence on the Government, even though ours will have but little. I should like just to quote a sentence from the speech he made in Birmingham after the passage of the Act of 1870. Mr. Chamberlain then said— If the resolutions of the School Board are carried into effect, numbers of children now enjoying the luxury of a sectarian education at the expense of the private supporters of denominational schools will enjoy that luxury at the expense of the ratepayers. This iniquity I and my colleagues have resisted, and will continue to resist, holding the opinion that in schools supported by the rates denominationalists have no right to interfere, and that they must not be allowed to meddle in the concerns of the kingdom in which they had no jurisdiction. I think those words of Mr. Chamberlain are extremely apposite now, and that they might well be taken into consideration by noble Lords opposite. When he introduced this Bill the Prime Minister claimed that it would secure co-ordination of educational authorities, that it would secure popular control, that it would end the religious difficulty. My Lords, these are high aims and worthy aspirations, but I think that from the debates that have taken place in Parliament and the discussions outside, it is very clear that there is little likelihood of those aspirations being realised. It is because I think that these aspirations will not be realised, because I think that this Bill will but accentuate and increase difficulties already existing, that I, for my part, shall cheerfully vote against the Second Reading with the full confidence that though, as is certain, the Bill will become law, its life will not be a long one, and that it will be the duty of my noble friend beside me, and those who think with him, at the very first opportunity to bring in a measure which will restore to the people of this country the control of education and also religious equality.

THE EARL OF NORTHBROOK

My Lords, I can promise your Lordships that I shall not detain you for more than a few moments, for I have no intention of entering upon the general discussion of the substance of this Bill. But great doubt has been expressed by my noble friend who moved the rejection of the Bill, and also by the noble Lord who has just spoken, whether the County Councils of England and Wales are the proper authorities for carrying the Bill into effect. On that question, perhaps, I may claim some right to speak, because I am chairman of a County Council and have the honour to be the Deputy-Chairman of the County Councils Association, upon which body every County Council in England and Wales is represented. That Association has very carefully considered the Bill and the functions which, under it, the County Councils will have to perform. As the noble Marquess the President of the Board of Education has already informed your Lordships, the County Councils Association met in May last and came to the conclusion that County Councils were acting through committees (a majority of whom should be members of the Council) as the education authorities, well qualified and prepared, if so requested by Parliament, to undertake the powers and duties imposed upon these authorities by the Bill. I venture to think, with regard to the doubts expressed by noble Lords on this subject, that the County Councils are better able to give an authoritative reply on this statement than anyone else. The County Councils Association also expressed unqualified approbation of those portions of the Bill which refer to secondary and technical education. For the first Resolution thirty representatives voted in favour and only seven against, and among the former was the representative of the County Council to which my noble friend Earl Spencer belongs Objection has been taken on the ground that the County Councils are to work through committees. I venture to think that no one who is acquainted with the way in which County Councils perform their duties would for a moment imagine that they could work in any other way. It is the course they adopt with respect to the whole of their business. An important measure of local government was passed some time ago which had to be worked by the County Councils through a most important committee. That committee sent down its members who made local inquiries all over the county, and carried out the work under that Act with perfect satisfaction to the public. It has been urged that experts will be precluded from sitting on these committees. I am surprised to hear that objection raised by anyone who is acquainted with the needs of education. The power of adding experts to education committees exists at present under the Technical Instruction Act, and it seems to me a most valuable power. County Councils object to an education committee being constituted which should not be composed of a majority of members of the County Council. That view was adopted by the Government, and an alteration was made in the Bill which provides that, except in some very exceptional cases, the majority of the members on the education committee shall be members of the Council. My noble friend Lord Tweedmouth said it was impossible for the County Council to know all about the primary schools in the counties. Of course it is impossible. How is any big work ever done in this country except by sub-dividing it? The work of the primary schools will be done by delegating powers from the education committee. A provision has been inserted in this Bill for the specific purpose of giving the education committees power to deal with matters in that way. Having given my best attention to the subject, and having heard the discussion between the representatives of the County Councils of the whole of England, I can only say that the County Councils are grateful to the Government for the manner in which they have met many suggestions which those Councils considered of importance with regard to the details of the Bill. Personally, although the matter is undoubtedly a difficult one, I look forward with great confidence to the duties which are imposed by this Bill on the County Councils being adequately and properly performed.

* THE LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER

My Lords, I listened with special attention to the speech of my noble friend Lord Tweedmouth, who raised a warm feeling of interest in the breasts of a good many of us when he told us that he was about to state what mode he would have adopted in the difficult circumstances in which we stand educationally had he been called upon to construct an Education Bill. When we waited to hear what the form of the Bill would in that case have been, all that we learnt was that it would have been one to carry out in its completeness the principles laid down in the Act of 1870. I venture to believe that this Bill very nearly fulfils the idea which the noble Lord in those few words sketched by carrying out in the altered circumstances of the day the very lines laid down by Mr. Forster and his colleagues in 1870. Last night the noble Earl who moved the rejection of the Bill said that the bishops—I do not know why the bishops were thus singled out—were opposing "a gigantic weight of opinion in the country rooted in conscientious conviction."I am not prepared to dispute the truth of the statement that there is a body of vehement opinion rooted in conscientious conviction, but I am not sure that the word "gigantic "is the one I should have used. But I let that pass. I would ask your Lordships for a moment to inquire whether that weight of opinion is grounded as a matter, of fact on a reasonable knowledge of the Bill as it stands, and whether it is a spontaneous expression of public opinion, or whether we can attribute to it a special character and a special origin? No one, I believe, who has studied the matter, will deny that the opposition to the Bill, honest and straightforward as it is, in the main a Nonconformist opposition. I am not in the least derogating from its importance on that account, but I think it is beyond question that the educational experts who are free from prejudices of distracting and disturbing kind, and who have expressed an opinion on the Bill, are, generally speaking, in an overwhelming preponderance on the side of the measure. Of course there are some educationists who oppose it, but I am speaking of the preponderant body of expert opinion. There is, however, a strong and united opposition to the Bill in Nonconformist quarters, and it is not a whit the less entitled to be listened to on that account. On the contrary, it is, in my judgment, of all the more weight because it is founded beyond question upon deep religious sentiment, and religious sentiment is one of the most important factors in the formation of effective opinions. But when we go further and ask how that opinion has reached its present head, I think we find reason to give us pause.

It is, of necessity, impossible for large numbers of people in the country to understand an intricate and complex Bill like this without someone to explain it to them, and in such a case trust is naturally reposed in some one who, from his position and personal character, is entitled to be listened to. There can be no question that the man who in this country has come forward to take that position among Nonconformists has been that trusted leader, that great religious guide to many people, Dr. Clifford, of whom I do not wish to say a single disrespectful word. The letters of Dr. Clifford, published originally in the Daily News, and republished as a pamphlet, have undoubtedly been a leading factor in the formation of that hostile public opinion which we are told is a gigantic force. He has endeavoured to put the characteristics of the Bill in a brief categorical form, which could be understood by everybody. Let me give an example of what I mean. When he uses terms which virtually tell his readers that the board schools are practically swept away, it would have seemed to me that he was indulging in purely fanciful rhetoric but from the fact that, last night, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Coleridge, with no less weight than belongs to one of His Majesty's Counsel learned in the law, practically adopted the same words. My Lords, I say unhesitatingly that, put in that form the words are the wildest distortion of the provisions of the Bill, and are actually, though I do not say intentionally, misleading to the public to whom they are addressed. The pamphlet again makes specific statements to the effect that the Bill, both in voluntary and in board schools, abolishes compulsory education, and it categorically states (I am here quoting its very words) that "it closes the evening schools." Is it a fair mode of dealing with the country, which cannot understand an intricate subject such as this Bill, to make categorical statements so preposterous as that? Can we be surprised that there should be a large force of public opinion roused to white heat against a measure which is supposed to be productive of such results? But that is not all. I touch, with some diffidence, on a subject more sacred in its character and more difficult to handle. A few months ago the National Council of the Evangelical Free Churches put forth a circular which I hold in my hand, expressly requesting all the Nonconformist ministers to unite their congregations in prayer on the subject. A more laudable, natural, and proper direction to emanate from this Council I cannot imagine, provided that what is meant is that the process shall be followed which we in this House, and the Members of the other House, follow every day, of invoking the Divine blessing on those who are entrusted with the most difficult work of legislation. But this circular goes on to say that the prayer should be directed specifically against what is described as "the perpetration of a retrograde step in regard to national education, and a cruel injustice to the Free Churches of our land." I venture to ask, with confidence, what noble Lords opposite would have said had the Bench of Bishops put forward a request that in the Churches throughout the country, prayer should be offered for the distinct and definite passing of particular Clauses of this Bill? Legitimately and properly we should have been condemned on every hand for abusing the position we hold, and I venture to say that what would have been true of us is no less true of those who have acted on the opposite side in the manner I have described. It is not, therefore, surprising that there should have been a great outburst of public sentiment on this subject among the section of the people to whom these appeals were made.

For a long time it was felt by those of us who, generally speaking, are in favour of this measure that we would not act wisely in endeavouring by public meetings to counteract what was being done on the other side, and that it would be better to leave the Bill to be understood, and to allow the country to weigh the matter quietly for itself; but after a time it was obvious that something else was needed, and wherever the endeavour has been made to circulate information which at least endeavours to be absolutely impartial and fair by those who take a different view of the question, the tide has turned and the state of public opinion is very different from what it was some time ago. I will give a concrete example. The largest town in my diocese is the town of Portsmouth, where the schools are almost entirely board schools. The pamphlet containing the letters of Dr. Clifford had an immense circulation and the effect produced was very great indeed. For a long time we left the matter alone, but ultimately those who regard the Bill with favour issued a series of leaflets and then called a public meeting in the Town Hall. In that town, which is full of board schools, and in which the voluntary schools are few and far between, the huge town hall was crowded before the meeting began, and enthusiastic resolutions were carried in favour of the Bill. That is no solitary instance of what is happening. I believe that as soon as the measure is properly understood, we shall find that that "gigantic" force of opinion to which the noble Earl has referred will dwindle away.

I pass from that to the need for the measure as a whole. It has been taken for granted more or less I think on both sides of the controversy by those who have no very special knowledge of the intricacies of the matter that the rural schools in England are at present exceedingly bad. I venture absolutely to dispute that proposition. Our rural schools are behindhand in their appliances, in their staffing, and in the amount of the salaries paid to the teachers, and frequently in the character of the school buildings, and it would be grossly unfair, in my judgment, to the teachers and to the children, to allow them to continue in that condition; but if the Government had acted in the way suggested by some, and had met the difficulty by simply establishing universal School Boards throughout the country, I venture to think they would have made the matter worse instead of better. Inefficient as some of our rural schools are, the most inefficient are those which are under the control of the School Boards. But I want to ask, Are we right in supposing that the existing rural schools are as black as they are painted? I should not expect your Lordships to accept my opinion on the character of those schools. I know them pretty thoroughly. I seldom visit any country parish without visiting the school, and I have therefore a personal acquaintance with hundreds of them. But I do not ask you to take my own evidence. What I have done has been to look carefully at the reports of His Majesty's Inspectors of Schools for the past year, to see exactly what those who are best qualified to speak have to say on the subject; and I would venture to trouble your Lordships with two extracts only. One is contained in the Report of His Majesty's Inspector for the East Central Division of England, the Rev. C. D. Du Port, who incorporates in his Report the reports of the Inspectors under him. I take the following sentence from the Report:— Because country teachers are indifferently paid, and because country managers find it diflicult to make both ends meet, therefore it is tacitly argued that country schools must needs be inefficient. They are nothing of the sort. … Apart from the difficulty of providing experienced teachers for small classes of infants, the rural schools are quite as good as the urban schools. The Inspector refers to the fact that if isolation is a drawback to the country teacher, it is also in some respects a distinct advantage. He says:— His school is always an organic whole and never degenerates, as the large urban school, sometimes does, into a mere bundle of classes. Then, again, successful town schools are frequently cast in one mould; whereas the good village school has a character and an individuality of its own which it has developed in response to the ' plastic stress "of a vigorous and independent mind.' I turn from that to another part of England, purposely taking places that are far from one another. I read in the Report of the Inspector for Cumberland, Westmorland, and the rural parts of Lancashire that: In the voluntary schools the assistants are as a rule, of poor qualifications, but the work often reaches as good a level as in schools which have on paper a far superior staff. This may be in part due to the teachers being treated more as individuals and less as pawns, but the main credit of it must be given to the headmasters of these schools, many of whom display extraordinary ability and energy. The strain involved in producing such excellence as they do must be well-nigh intolerable; but they do produce it very often. Those, my Lords, are testimonies from His Majesty's Inspectors as to the character of our rural schools. I say unhesitatingly that the credit for this is due, in the first place, to the teachers who, in isolated positions and labouring under extreme financial and other drawbacks, evince a magnificent devotion, and are content to accept lower salaries than they could get elsewhere, rather than abandon the interests of the rural schools. In the second place, I venture to say that the others upon whom the credit rests are the clergy, in whom, for the last hundred years or more, the care for education in our rural districts has been practically centred.

I happened, recently, to find by accident a Report of a Committee of the Quarter Sessions of Hampshire upon "The State of the Poor," presented at the Midsummer Session at Winchester more than a hundred years ago. At that time day schools were few and far between. Such education as was given at all to the children in rural districts was mainly given in the Sunday schools, and the committee of Magistrates, who looked into the subject, stared in a somewhat startled and almost frightened way at the progress, infinitesimal as it seems to us, that was then being made educationally among the people. The committee regarded the endeavour with the sort of puzzled caution with which a flock of sheep stares at a strange thing in the field. They deprecated—I quote their own words— That supposed learning, that zeal beyond knowledge, which tends to enthusiasm. And they went on to say— It is with limitation only that schools for the poor are beneficial. So far as they have any tendency to raise an idea of scholarship, to make those who attend them conceive they are scholars, and thence to place them in their own conceit above common labour, they become prejudicial instead of serviceable to the community. That was the view taken by the laity of that period of the character and need of rural education, and I mention it to show yonr Lordships the kind of difficulties which the clergy had to contend with in initiating the schools which have now reached the excellent level I have described. I am almost afraid to call attention to this fact that Report is signed by the ancestors of some of your Lordships. The people who had to combat such views as to education in the rural districts were the clergy. They were the only people who, during the greater part of the century that has closed, really put their backs into it and cared about the promotion of rural education. They were believers in it when other people were not, and they are believers in it today. It is as educationalists, not as clerics, that they have thrown themselves into the work, although, of course, they have always, both by word and act, laid emphasis upon the foremost place which religious teaching must take as the basis for the formation of character.

In urban districts, also, the credit for educational progress, speaking generally, is due though of course in a less exclusive degree to the clergy. In the debates of the last few months it has not been unusual to hear the fact that a great many clergy are sitting on School Boards cited as evidence that the School Boards are not hostile to the clergy—a view which the clergy are inaccurately supposed to take. Undoubtedly the system which many of the clergy advocate in their voluntary schools is one which certain members of the School Boards are apt to discredit; but I have never heard the other charge made, and I was startled to hear it alluded to in Parliament the other day as something that we were supposed to have charged School Boards with. The conclusion that I will draw, however, is that the clergy are found to be the best leaders and guides in the education that is carried on by our School Boards. It is no small fact, surely, that the School Boards of such places as Newcastle, Manchester, Birmingham, Salford, and Sheffield, to take only a few instances, all have clergymen as their chairmen. It is, therefore, utterly monstrous to suggest that the clergy as such are engaged in promoting sectarian interests alone in elementary schools and not thinking of education as a whole. If that was so, would they have been appointed in these leading towns as chairmen of the School Boards? It is because they are educationists of the first order that they stand where they do; to make out that they are obscurantists is, to my mind, simply to contradict the facts of history and the evidence that is before our eyes at this moment.

The three main objections advanced against the Bill are that its idea is to retain denominational tests, that it gives control without adequate popular representation, and that it uses the rates for denominational teaching. Let me deal with these points one by one. I yield to no man in my dislike to denominational tests as a bar to any position of responsibility or service in the State which deals simply with secular matters. But it does seem to me the merest pedantry not to admit that to that general rule there must be an exception with regard to the people whose duty it is going to be to give religious instruction. You are bound to find out whether the person who is going to give such instruction is fit to give it. I have frequently borne testimony to the admirable religious teaching that is given in the schools of the London School Board and of many other of the large School Boards, but why is it that in these schools the religious instruction is so well given? It is because the teachers have all practically been trained in religious colleges in which one of the foremost tasks undertaken is the preparation of men and women to give religious education to little children. Under this Bill we are going, quite rightly, to provide other and more extensive means for the training of our future masters and mistresses, but in so far as that provision is made by the State it will be of a secular character, and to that extent the result will be that in a few years hence you will be obliged to choose those who will be entrusted with the giving of religious teaching from people who have not had the advantage the teachers of today have had. If you choose a master to teach drawing, you do not think it sufficient that he should express his willingness to teach it. You test his qualifications. You are bound to do the same before you assign to him the most difficult, by common consent, of all a schoolmaster's duties, the teaching adequately and well of the truths of religion. Therefore I protest against the notion that an inquiry into the qualification of a teacher to give, conscientiously and because he believes them, the truths of our religion, however simply, to little children, is a violation of any fundamental principle.

In the next place, it is alleged against this Bill that control is being given without adequate popular representation. That all depends upon what is meant by control. If I understand the Bill rightly, there will be no necessity whatever for a single penny passing through the hands of any other person than those who are either popularly elected themselves or appointed by those who are popularly elected. But no doubt I shall be told that the real difficulty lies in the fact that the appointment of the teacher rests with those who are, to the extent of two-thirds, not popularly elected. Yes; but it is made under the control of the whole body, under the absolute control and guidance, as regards educational efficiency, of the popularly elected body which stands behind. What practically will happen is this, that the managers—one-third from outside, and two-thirds from inside—will have the right of nominating a teacher from among those who are approved as competent by the education authority. If that is taking the control out of the hands of those who raise the money, I do not know what control means. It may still be said that it is an unfair arrangement, that there ought not to be any preponderating voice given to the denominational managers in the appointment of the teacher. Well, on that point I should like to go back five years, when the atmosphere was a little clearer with regard to this particular controversy, and when politicians of all kinds were able to look at the matter in a calmer way than they can today. I turn to a speech delivered five years ago by Mr. Asquith at Rochdale, and I should like to read what he said:— I have never gone the length of thinking or of saying, nor, I believe, have any of my friends, that the principle of popular control ought to be carried to the length of subverting the denominational character of the schools. I think that would be an unfair thing, an unjust thing; that it would, in effect, disestablish the denominational character of the schools, and transform them, and practically put them on the same footing as the board schools of the country. I agree that, if you are to have a denominational system, then the particular tenets of the particular faith must be taught, and that those tenets may be taught in good faith, with enthusiasm and with zeal, it is not unnatural that the managers of those schools should claim to have a preponderating voice in the choice of teachers. That was the view taken at a calmer time by one of the foremost leaders of those who are at present opposing the Bill of the Government.

THE EARL OF ROSEBERY

Who was maintaining the schools then?

* THE LORD BISHOP OF WINCHESTER

The criticism of the noble Earl is a most fair and reasonable one. I am only using the quotation to prove one point in my argument. What we are told by so clear-headed an educationist as Mr. Asquith is that if you are to maintain denominational schools at all it is not unreasonable that the managers of those schools should claim to have a preponderating voice in the choice of the teachers; provided you maintain denominational schools at all you are not to make the appointment of the teachers depend upon those who are not preponderatingly belonging to the denomination. I admit that under the present Bill a change takes place as regards the payment for the schools. All I use the quotation for is to press this point; he admits that if a denominational system is to go on at all you must leave the preponderating voice in the appointment of teachers to the denominational managers. Is not that exactly what this Bill is practically doing? It leaves, not the entire voice, not the complete control, but the preponderating voice in the appointment of teachers, to those who belong to the denomination. There I am content to leave that point at present. But there is one little point that I should like to dwell upon. Some noble Lords who sit on the opposite side of the House have the advantage—I should say the high privilege—of being members of the London County Council; and one of them, who I believe is to address us tonight, the Earl of Rosebery among the many distinguished offices he has held, has filled none of them more splendidly than the chairmanship of the London County Council. There is great talk about the remoteness of the control given to the popularly-elected authority over the appointment of teachers. Is it remembered how remote is the popular control in the appointment of teachers by the different technical education boards under the London County Council? There are contributions from the City Companies and from other bodies, enabling them to obtain, I will not say a preponderating, but a large voice in the appointment of teachers. It is in this way that they practically work in the splendid way they have worked their Polytechnics and other institutions. I do not wish to make too much of that point, but it does seem to me to be worth bearing in mind when we hear of the distance between the teachers who are actually at work and those who have the ultimate control of the work.

Then with regard to the objections raised to the whole principle—this fundamental principle, as the noble Lord said—of giving rate aid for denominational schools. The position of those who take that point is to me bewildering in the extreme. I think I am not wrong in saying that in the early days of the Parliamentary debates of the last few months, again and again it was said that, however important might be the question of who the ultimate authority was, there was one thing far more important, and that was the fundamental principle that rate aid ought not under any circumstances whatever to be given for denominational teaching. I find that one of the leaders of the opposition to this Bill, Mr. Lloyd-George, said early in the debates— I agree that the question of the authority (he is speaking of representation and the rates) is not really the most important part of the Bill. There is only one important question that divides us, that of rate-aid for teaching religion of which a large portion of the ratepayers do not approve. That is the whole question so far as we are concerned. My Lords, I call attention to those words. I ask you to look on a few months, and you will find these same people telling us that they would be perfectly satisfied if they had the Scotch system established in England tomorrow. The whole essence of the Scotch system is the giving of rate aid to denominational education; and the people who told us a few months ago that the objection to the use of rates for denominational education was vital, have now boxed the compass and tell us that the process they desire to see followed is one that has rate aid for denominational schools as its very backbone and essence. My Lords, I dwell upon that not because I want to taunt those who have so spoken with inconsistency; it may be that they are inconsistent, but that is not the point that I want to dwell upon. It is this: that it is the best evidence we can have of the difficulty which they find in formulating any other scheme. First they are forced to one conclusion as to the fundamental principle; then they are forced to go right round the compass until they get to the opposite principle in order to justify their opposition to the Bill now before the country. I refer to it simply to show that they have practically no alternative scheme which can hold the field against this scheme now before your Lordships' House. I venture to think that to that extent at least the argument is not an unimportant one.

My Lords, I have, I am afraid, detained your Lordships too long. I have spoken as an educationist rather than as an ecclesiastic. I could say much if it were necessary on the constructive side of the Bill that is before us, but the introduction of the measure last night by the noble Lord, and the speech of the President of the Education Board tonight, have dealt so fully with that subject that I do not propose to dwell upon it further. I am not prepared to say that in every particular I think this Bill the best that could have been devised. I should like to have seen it different in a good many ways. Indeed, I doubt whether any single Member of your Lordships' House (including even the authors of the Bill) is prepared to say that. The best scheme that could be devised we each of us have no doubt in our own minds, and it will doubtless differ from the present Bill. But this is an honest, straightforward, and courageous endeavour to grapple with a great and difficult problem in a way which will best meet the conflicting interests which anyone who has to deal with this subject has to meet. I confess I am not alarmed by the prognostications of failure which have been rife both inside and outside Parliament. I look back and find how in 1870 no less a politician than John Bright, and others with him, told us that that Bill was doomed to speedy failure, whereas it is now regarded as practically the palladium of the liberties of those who desire educational progress. Then I pass on to the Bill of 1889. Your Lordships all remember how in 1889 powers were given to the County Councils to help technical education. We were told again and again that none of the Councils would use the Bill—that the last thing they would do would be to spend that money on educational purposes. My Lords, we know the County Councils better now. In a very large degree, and in a constantly increasing degree, these funds have been used as they were intended to be used. That again, therefore, prevents my being alarmed at the prognostications and fears with regard to the future of this Bill. Five years ago, when the Voluntary Schools Association Bill was passed, we were told that these associations were bound to fail, and that the plan would lead to ceaseless wrangles among those who were trying to get money for individual schools. Yet nothing of the sort has happened, and the result of those associations has been to an enormous degree to help forward the work of rural schools in practically every county in England. The term "co-ordination" has received a very great deal of ridicule in this House and elsewhere. It has been spoken of as a kind of mysterious "Mesapotamia," which means nothing and serves no good purpose. I believe that to be absolutely fallacious. No principle of this Bill is more absolutely certain to work out well and successfully than the co-ordination which must result where it is properly worked as regards every step in our educational system. Nothing is so good in these matters as a concrete instance. I live hard by the little town of Farnham. We have a population, partly urban and partly rural, of 12,000. We have five board schools and four voluntary schools; we have a grammar school for boys and a secondary school for girls; we have a pupil teachers' Centre, and we have all sorts of evening classes. They are under five different authorities, and they are receiving grants (quite apart from voluntary subscriptions) from three totally different sources. Anything more puzzling and more extravagant than such a complicated system could hardly be conceived. Now already, before the Bill is passed we are seeing our way to the complete co-ordination of that system, bringing the primary and secondary organisation into one united whole, the secondary schools being able to be supported by the same authority, and the teachers in the secondary schools being available when necessary for scientific and other subjects in elementary schools, because there will be the same paymaster. In that, and many other ways, I am certain that before many years have passed we shall find that the results of the measure will be so good as will startle those who have given it such strenuous opposition.

My Lords, I have said all I have to say, but I am charged with one duty that I desire to perform before I sit down. Your Lordships listened last night with the attention always due, but due in a special sense last night, to the most rev. Primate. We do not know whether to admire more the weighty and pathetic speech that he delivered, or the courage with which he delivered it in the face of obvious physical difficulties. It is not a small thing that at the head of the Church of England, which has necessarily so much to do with the organisation of education, we should have one who, for a life of more than fourscore years, has been from the outset in the forefront of every movement of educational progress and reform. More than fifty years ago Mr. Temple, as he then was, was a prominent figure in educational work, and he is in the forefront of that work still. I think that is a record which will be difficult to match in the history of educational work, whether in the Church or in the civil community. I had the privilege this morning of speaking to the Archbishop upon the subject of this Bill and of his speech last night, and he desired me to say this—that had not physical weakness prevented, he desired to have concluded his speech by a very earnest appeal to all those whom his words might reach—the managers, clerical and lay alike, and all those who are interested in the voluntary schools which are still connected with the Church—that it should be one of their primary and foremost efforts when this Bill becomes law to see that no hardship is inflicted thereby upon Nonconformists. We have all along desired—those who take a lead in Church matters—that facilities of every kind should be given for the removal of every possible Nonconformist grievance that is removable in our parishes. But the most rev. Primate desired that the last words of his speech should be such an appeal on behalf of those who, while not belonging to our Church, are as entitled to their religious convictions as any of ourselves, any of your Lordships, any of those who are sending their children to a Church school, being themselves Churchmen; and to beg that every possible endeavour might be made by us who are responsible in these schools for removing difficulties wherever that can possibly be done. My Lords, we have long expressed such a desire—we desire it still; and I for one honestly believe that when the controversies which are raising the present dust and turmoil are overpast, we shall be found—Nonconformist and Churchman alike—under the provisions of this measure, co-operating in the task of working out the far-reaching and beneficent scheme which I firmly believe the whole country will before long determinedly and hopefully take in hand.

* LORD REAY

My Lords, I am sure your Lordships generally will have sympathised with the very pathetic appeal conveyed to us from the most rev. Prelate by the right rev. Prelate who has just sat down.

My Lords, what is the problem with which the Government intended to deal in this Bill? In the first place, it was to organise secondary education; in the next place, to prevent overlapping, to co-ordinate; further to improve the financial condition of voluntary schools, and finally to increase the efficiency of schools in rural districts. As regards secondary education, the Bill contains no compulsory Clause imposing on the local education authority the duty to make provision for secondary education. It gives no power to the Board of Education to create that supply. It is merely permissive. There are no guarantees whatever that anything will be done either for the improvement of the higher technological instruction or for higher education on modern lines. The Board of Education acts, as the noble Marquis said tonight, in a merely consultative capacity. Inspection is not provided for, except the voluntary inspection under the Act of 1899; neither the representation of the local education authority on the governing bodies of assisted schools, nor the examination of inspected schools, with a view to leaving certificates, of which we in Scotland receive all the benefit at present; schools conducted for private profit are not excluded; and no audit is provided for schools which receive assistance. It was said tonight that some one on this side had fully approved of these proposals. I suppose the fact is that the Gentleman referred to did not quarrel with them, for the simple reason that there is nothing in them with which you can quarrel; they are absolutely illusory, and secondary education will, after the Bill becomes an Act, be very much in the same position as it is in now.

The problem of overlapping and co-ordination is one which concerns chiefly the big towns. The noble Marquess laid great stress on the fact that School Boards were more bent on extending the range of their operations than on doing their duty to the elementary schools primarily under their control.

THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY

Let me correct the noble Lord. What I said was that they should be more concerned in promoting the quality of the education.

LORD REAY

It comes rather to the same thing; it means that in the view of the noble Marquess the quality of the education in elementary schools leaves something to be desired. As regards the quality of the education in the elementary schools it is so far from the case that the London School Board overlooks it that lately a very definite inquiry has been proceeding as to the best means of still further improving the quality.

THE MARQUESS OF LONDON DERRY

I am aware that the School Board drew attention to the fact that there had been a loss in accuracy.

* LORD REAY

Its Inspectors had brought to the notice of the School Board that through the change of system of the education there was some risk that accuracy might not be enforced as strictly as it was in former days. I only mention this to show that no neglect can be imputed to us, and I may perhaps point out that the Board Inspectors (and not His Majesty's Inspectors) were the first to bring it to the notice of the School Board. No further proof is needed to show that the School Board is fully alive to its responsibility in the matter.

Now, I should like to say in regard to higher grade schools that these schools to which the accusation would apply that we were going rather beyond the legitimate range of our operations, are not secondary or technical schools, but in the language of the Board of Education "Higher Elementary Schools, "or what in France is called the Ecole primaire supérieure. The Higher Elementary School is the school which represents the final stage of the education given to those who can only receive elementary education, so that as regards the extension of the range of operations there certainly was no sufficient ground for abolishing School Boards.

The noble Marquees alluded to a resolution of the London School Board in favour of the system of this Bill and if its application to London. Since that resolution was passed—yesterday—the School Board by Majority adopted a resolution moved by Dr. Macnamara that for London no departure should be made from the system of ad hoc representation. I trust, therefore, that I have convinced the noble Marquess that, as far as London is concerned, there does not exist any widespread desire to see the principles of this Act applied.

If there has been any encroachment of School Boards on higher and secondary education, the noble Duke in his speech last night was careful to say—and I am sure the noble Marquess will not fail to endorse it—that it had been done with the connivance and even with the encouragement of the Education Department. The School Boards are certainly not the only or even the chie