§ MR. MASON (Lanark, Mid)called attention to the work of the School Board of Glasgow, with the view of meeting some statements which had been made by the hon. Member for St. Rollox (Mr. Caldwell) in Committee the other night, and which had caused a considerable amount of irritation in Glasgow. His hon. Friend told the Committee—
§ MR. SPEAKERI must remind the hon. Gentleman that he is not entitled, when the Speaker is in the Chair, to refer to a speech made in Committee of this Session.
§ MR. MASONsaid, he at once bowed to the Speaker's ruling. He had wished simply to state a few facts in connection with the School Board system in Glasgow. It had been alleged that the School Board were not giving effect to the Compulsory Clauses of the Act of 1872. But the records of that Board showed that they had had meetings with parents whose children were not at school, and that the number of children represented by these parents and dealt with by the Board was between 30,000 and 40,000, while at present the Board were meeting 100 such parents every week. When the Act was passed the population within the area of the Glasgow School Board was calculated to be 513,000. Striking the average between the Registrar General's figures and those of the Sanitary Authorities, it was supposed that the population last year would not exceed 1289 533,000. Now, the number of scholars in attendance in 1873, the year after the Act was passed, was, in round numbers, 43,000. The increase of population since allowed for a proportionate increase of not more than 2,500. Last year the number of children in attendance was 68,000; and if there was any error in getting up these statistics now, he would point out that the error would also be in the statistics for the former period, because the statistics were got up by the same Board and by the same machinery; and, therefore, the action of the Compulsory Clause had resulted in an increase of more than 22,000 scholars—a result which he thought was very satisfactory, and which went to prove that the Act was being properly worked. He believed, moreover, that the Roman Catholic and other outside schools were securing a proportionate increase of attendance. With regard to another point to which reference had been made, it was notorious that the ratepayers of the City of Glasgow were those who were engaged in business there. They might live outside, but they paid the rates inside, and were quite entitled to send their children to the Board schools in the city. It was quite a mistake to suppose that the Board had aimed at suppressing private schools, or were catering specially for the education of the middle and upper classes. In respect to the endowments of the City of Glasgow, which it was said had been taken away from the poorer classes, it must be borne in mind that they were managed under separate Boards entirely, and that the Glasgow School Board was in no way responsible for the altered condition of things if there was any grievance in connection therewith. He thought these facts showed that the Glasgow School Board was doing admirable work; and he saw no cause for complaint in connection with its management. It was a popularly-elected Board, and thoroughly under the control of the ratepayers; and, therefore, he could not understand why there should be any ground for complaint. He would be very glad if the Secretary for Scotland could see his way to support a movement for improving secondary education; but, generally speaking, he wished it to be understood that they had an admirable system of education in Scotland, and he did not think they should disturb it at present. 1290 The existing system ought to be allowed to work itself out some time longer before they meddled with it; and he believed the results would show, as they had done in the past, a large improvement in education. In Glasgow, in the last 35 years, the system of education had been greatly developed. Thousands of children for whom formerly there was no room had now abundant facilities for attending school, and the Compulsory Clause was bringing in a great number of children who otherwise would get no education. The School Board of Glasgow was doing its work well, gentlemen of the highest position giving up their time for the purpose; and he would be sorry if an impression got abroad that it was thought the Scotch system was not what it ought to be. He hoped, as he had said before, that the Scotch Secretary would let the system work itself out.
§ MR. CALDWELL (Glasgow, St. Rollox)said, he was not going to enter into the general question of the School Board system; but he was glad the hon. Member for Mid Lanark had an opportunity of obtaining official information and endeavouring to rebut any statement that had been made on the previous occasion. They could not, he understood, go back on all that had passed in Committee; but he supposed he might refer to what he himself had said, or, at all events, repeat what he then said. Since the matter was discussed, his statements had been before the Glasgow public and the Glasgow School Board; and as the hon. Member for Mid Lanark evidently held a brief for the School Board, he might be allowed to reply to what that hon. Gentleman had said. It so happened that the points which he (Mr. Caldwell) regarded as material had not been answered at all. What were the real facts? They were these. That they had in Glasgow 91,000 children between 5 and 13; and that there were only 51,000 in full average attendance, while 40,000 were daily absent. That statement had not been contradicted, and in face of it, it could not be said that the Glasgow School Board was efficiently carrying out the Compulsory Clauses of the Act. More than that, he had pointed out that, whereas in all Scotland they had 66.7 of the children between 5 and 13 in daily average attendance, in Glas- 1291 gow the percentage was only 56. Glasgow, therefore, was 10 per cent below the whole of Scotland; and what he complained of was that Members of the Scotch Education Departmentcame down and made statements that everything in Glasgow was highly satisfactory. The hon. Member for Mid Lanark had not contradicted the public statements made in that House, which, he said, were creating a great deal of indignation. Another complaint he had to make was that, while the Glasgow School Board was undoubtedly doing a great deal of good work, what they were doing was principally for the benefit of the middle and upper classes. In Glasgow there were only 1,255 children attending private schools who paid over 9d. per week. The hon. Member for Mid Lanark said the Board schools were so well managed that they were able to undertake this work. But that was not the explanation. The explanation was that they had an unlimited local grant and a large Imperial grant, and with these and the school fees they were able to drive out all private competition. It was not the education they gave, but the lavish, amount of money at their command which enabled them to do this. When he made the remark that the middle and upper classes were receiving the benefit of the Board schools, the reply of the hon. Member for Mid Lanark was, "No." When they found, however, that the average attendance was only 56 per cent, they might be certain that the middle and upper class children would be there almost to a boy, and that the deficiency would be found among the poorer classes, which represented a much larger percentage than that of all those attending school. He would only say this—that if, as the hon. Member for Mid Lanark said, the Glasgow School Board were doing a great work among the children for whom the Act was intended, the fact still remained that the children were not in the schools. There were a great number of other points to which he would like to refer; but he confined himself to the one which had been referred to, and he repeated that none of his statements had been contradicted.
§ MR. E. R. RUSSELL (Glasgow, Bridgeton)said, he wished on behalf of the city—one division of which he represented—to thank his hon. Friend the 1292 Member for Mid Lanark (Mr. Mason) for the protest he had made against the complaints which had been directed against the School Board. He thought the House would recognize in the speech that was delivered by the hon. Member for the St. Rollox Division of Glasgow (Mr. Caldwell) symptoms of a mind which was a little too much strained on one point, and which was hardly practically directed to any question of material importance. It would be found, if the documents of the Glasgow School Board were investigated, that the question which the hon. Member had brought before the House was never absent from. the consideration of the Glasgow School Board, and that they did not need to be instructed either in what they should do in the matter, or in the view they should take of the shortcomings of their administration. They knew perfectly well they had to deal with most peculiar circumstances—the circumstances of a population in which it was in the highest degree difficult, either by compulsion or other means, to obtain the regular attendance of considerable proportions of the juvenile community; and they were, on the whole, satisfied that they were doing their best. He wished to bear testimony to the views of his constituency that the Board had succeeded as far as circumstances permitted, and that they had not been successfully accused of any deficiencies in the machinery they applied, or in their endeavours to apply it. He trusted the Secretary for Scotland would continue to take this view of the matter, and he was not likely to fall into the error which the hon. Member for the St. Rollox Division appeared to be guilty of—namely, of overlooking the very peculiar circumstances of the case, and of applying a test and criterion to the efficiency of the Glasgow School Board which was not just.
§ THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)said, that this was the last phase of a battle that had long been waged between the hon. Member for the St. Rollox Division of Glasgow and the School Board of that city. It was not his business to pronounce on the statistics that had been brought before the House. He did not know that he had the materials for dealing satisfactorily with the question. If the School Board 1293 had failed in their duty as much as the hon. Member appeared to think they had, he should doubt whether the Department over which he presided had any power of complaint in the matter. It would be sufficient for him to say—what the hon. Member for St. Rollox did not deny—that the School Board consisted of a most energetic, public-spirited, and able body of gentlemen; that they devoted a vast amount of their time and trouble to the solution of this great educational question; and that they had to deal with circumstances of extreme difficulty—difficulties greater than those that obtained in country districts—with which a comparison had been instituted. Having said so much he thought he might leave that matter to be discussed by the Glasgow School Board when the facts and figures of the hon. Member for St. Rollox were presented to them, as he understood they would be, in an authenticated and complete form. There was an accusation against the School Board, however, on which he must be allowed to say a word or two. The hon. Member for St. Rollox had told them that the School Board were devoting the rates to the education of the richer classes in the community. On the proper solution of that most difficult question he was not going to say anything; but he would remind the hon. Member that the Glasgow School Board was a popularly elected body, and that the working classes of Glasgow had it in their power to alter its constitution entirely. Therefore, if they thought that the public funds were being diverted from the use of the poor to the use of the rich, it rested with the poor majority to put that state of things right. The hon. Member for Mid Lanark (Mr. Mason) referred to the question of secondary education; and he (Mr. A. J. Balfour) might remind him of the fact that the Government had quite recently taken an important step in this direction by arranging for the Government inspection of secondary schools. That, he thought, was a great step in advance. The subject was one that must attract the attention of the Scotch Minister for Education; and he could assure the House it was one of those subjects to which he was devoting himself as far as possible.