RESOLUTION. (Hansard, 4 July 1861)

§ MR. DILLWYN
said, he rose to call the attention of the House to the annually-increasing amount of the Educational Estimates, and to the principle upon which such votes should be given. He should willingly have complied with the appeal made by the noble Lord at the head of the Government to Members with Motions similarly placed to his own, not to press them unless the subject was either one of urgent necessity, or likely to lead to a practical result, were it not for the belief which he entertained that it was really necessary to call attention seriously to the Educational Estimates. According to his view, the country was being over educated. The money voted was administered on a wrong principle, and it was time that the principle itself should be reconsidered. But for the strong feeling in favour of edu- 295 cation, which prevented Gentlemen from doing anything even having the appearance of impeding its progress, he believed these Estimates would long since have been reconsidered. The growth of the amounts voted for educational purposes was perfectly astonishing. He held in his hand a return which had been made to the House of Lords in 1856, showing the progressive advance of the educational grant, and he had supplemented it to the present time. From that it appeared that from the year 1838 to 1841 there was an annual charge of £30,000 for public education in Great Britain. In 1842, it was increased to £40,000; in 1843, to £50,000; in 1844 it fell back to £75,000; in 1846, to £100,000; in 1847 it remained at the same figure; in 1848, 1849, and 1850, the Vote was £125,000; in 1851 it rose to £150,000; in 1852 to £160,000; in 1853 to £260,000; in 1854 to £263,000; in 1855 it was £396,921; in 1856 it was £451,213; in 1857, £541,233; in 1858, £663,435; in 1859, £836,920; in 1860 there was a slight diminution, and the Vote fell to £798,000; whilst in this year, 1861, he observed it had again risen to £803,000. The Vote for the science and art department had increased in the same way. In 1841 it commenced with a modest demand for £1,100; in 1845 it had reached £4,911; in 1846, £5,000; in 1847, £6,000; in 1848, £10,000; and so it went on till in 1855 it had reached £79,000, and in the present year they were asked to vote no less a sum than £111,000. The gross amount of the Votes pertaining to education which they were asked to vote that year was thus £915,278; and that, as he was reminded by his right hon. Friend the Member for Carlise (Sir James Graham), was entirely independent of any Vote for Ireland, while in 1840 the gross amount was only £31,300. That was such a rapid rise, and the Votes had now attained such a very large figure, that it was the imperative duty of the House to see that the money was properly expended, and that the principle upon which the money was applied did advance the education of the poor which he took to be the object of the State grants. The history of the educational movement was this:—About the time from 1838 to 1841, when the Votes were only £30,000 a year, the country and the House became alarmed at the ignorance which prevailed throughout the country, and very 296 properly thought it a discredit and a disgrace to the country that education should be so neglected as it was. It was found that not only was the amount of education given very limited, that the supply of schools were uncertain, being dependent on the charity of individuals, and that in some of the most populous districts there existed no school whatever; but, also, that those who professed to teach were themselves untaught, the schoolmasters being very ill-qualified for the task they had undertaken. The House set their shoulders to the wheel, and in some respects very successfully, to correct this state of things; they saw the necessity of raising the standard of education, especially in regard to schoolmasters, and of providing in the large manufacturing towns and populous districts places of education within reach of the poorer classes. But they did not look into the question how high a standard of education ought to be attained; all they sought was to raise the standard, give better books, better masters, and induce the people to accept the education which was given. There was no niggardly spirit on the part of the House; on the contrary, the House cheerfully granted whatever was asked for so long as they thought the money was well spent. The great difficulty, however was to induce the people to accept of the education offered, and how to provide for its extension to all classes, especially to those not connected with the Church of England—the Church of England not probably representing so much as one-half of the entire population. Many hon. Members thought then, and still retained the opinion, that the system should be purely sectarian; while others, both Churchmen and Dissenters, forming, as he doubted not, a majority, took a contrary view. The difficulties were very fairly grappled with. The question was met on both sides of the House in a very fair and liberal spirit, and the system of education which had been offered had been accepted by all classes, and had been productive of beneficial results throughout the country. But all this time it had never been considered how high the standard was being carried, and he thought it was now time that they should reconsider the principle upon which these Votes were applied. He, for one, did not grudge the amount which they were now asked to vote, were he sure that the mode in which the education was offered was the one best calculated to promote the cause of sound education among the poor; 297 but he considered that the education which they were giving was not producing that good which they were entitled to expect from the great amount of the Vote. They had raised the standard very much above that which was usually considered to be elementary education. He did not mean to define elementary education as limited to reading, writing, and cyphering, as it might possibly be desirable to give something more; but instruction was now given and prizes awarded in geography, singing, drawing, mechanics, and political economy. He thought the House would agree with him that that was not the kind knowledge which it was requisite for that House to provide for the poor. There was one thing manifest, which was that if they tried to give this high standard of education to the poor they must have two different departments to administer the Vote, and he might quote in support of that opinion what the Voice-President of the Committee of Council told them in a recent discussion, when the question of supporting ragged schools was raised—namely, that he did not see how the department under his control could properly undertake the education of the very poorest classes, the classes which he (Mr. Dillwyn) thought it their duty most especially to provide education for. He had no doubt, from what he saw, that in many cases the poorer classes felt great jealousy and distrust in sending their children to these schools, because they did not think they got proper attention from the masters, or the attention that they would get if there were schools where the elementary education which was suitable to them was only given. They thought there was no occasion for having their children taught algebra, geometry, mensuration, and other subjects of that kind, and they were right, because the children only got a smattering of knowledge which they forgot immediately after they left school. Finding this to be the case the school masters directed their attention principally to those children whose parents could afford to leave them at the school, and the education of the poor was left in a great measure to the care of pupil teachers. It might be a good suggestion that the schools for the poor should be handed over to the Poor Law Board, and that the others should be left as at present; but in his opinion the wisest course would be to retrace their steps, and not continue to raise but to lower the standard of education given by 298 the State. The Reports of the Committee of Council on Education bore him out in the statement that if they went on raising the standard and continued to educate the poorer classes, some different system to that now in use must be resorted to. In 1860, Mr. Tinley, inspector of Church of England schools in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset, reported that reading was the most defective subject, arising partly from the pronunciation of the peasantry, partly from the difficult character and uninteresting nature of the books employed, and partly from the insufficient time that the children were kept to the study. Mr. Brookfield, in reference to the schools in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and the Channel Islands, stated that the masters and mistresses employed themselves too exclusively with the upper and easier educated classes, while the poorer and more difficult to educate were left to the care of pupil teachers. Mr. Kennedy, inspector of the Lancashire and Isle of Man schools, spoke of the advance of the pupils in their studies, and showed himself in favour of the system employed; but he also remarked that the children left the school very early, and that he wished them, therefore, to be very carefully grounded in essentials. Mr. Norris, the inspector of Church of England schools in the country of Chester, Salop, and Staffordshire, had during the past year made a memorandum of the proportion of children in each school who could read aloud an easy narrative intelligibly and fluently. He tested the first class by giving the children news papers, and asking them to read aloud any suitable paragraph. The result had been satisfactory in very few cases, not more than 20 out of the 169 first class pupils he examined last year had he found able to read a newspaper at sight, and not more than one-fourth of the children could read aloud their reading-book intelligibly and fluently. He had no doubt that many hon. and Gentlemen had looked over these Reports, and had come to the same conclusion as he had, that the elementary instruction given by the system for which they voted money was insufficient. They were still attempting to rise the standard of education, and the result was that the poorer classes, whom it was their imperative duty to assist, got a superficial kind of knowledge of a great many things, which was of little use to them, and was soon forgotten, while they were left deficient in the essentials of education, which if carefully 299 instilled in early life would stick to them, and enable them thereafter to educate themselves. If they were to continue the present state of things they must separate the system into two, and they must have education for the higher and the poorer classes taught in different establishments, and under a different system of administration. But he denied that it was the proper business of the State, or that it was wise, to attempt to raise the standard of education; and if this was so the sooner they reconsidered the matter the better; every year that they went on the task of retracing their steps would become more difficult. Probably no section of the House, or of the community, wished to see the education of all classes in the country taken in hand by the State, but that must ultimately be the result unless some alteration in the present system was adopted. They had raised the standard already beyond what was adapted to the poorest classes, and they were now educating those whose parents could very well afford to pay for their education. The result of this was that no private schoolmaster could compete with the State schools, and it became more difficult to obtain private and independent education. The system pressed very hard upon clerks and professional men, who had a position to maintain in society, and who were really not so well off as the mechanics of the grade below them, who had no position in society to maintain, for they were too proud and independent in spirit to send their children to be educated at the State schools, and were obliged to go to great expense in their education to enable them to compete with the children of the working men who were educated at the cost of the State from funds to which they themselves contributed. He repeated that the effect of following out the present system would be to separate the education of the poor from that of the class above them, and then they would find all classes of society, one after another, availing themselves of the National Schools. All classes would be gathered into the education net, and before long they would see all the education of the country practically in the hands of the Government—a result which he, for one, was most anxious to avert. He would state what he considered to be the proper duty of the State with regard to education. Elementary education was, in his opinion, a necessary of life. No child in the Kingdom, however poor the parents, ought to 300 be debarred on account of poverty from receiving an education which was necessary to keep it from poverty or crime. He did not, however, think it was the business of the State to force it upon the children any more than it was their duty to force upon them food or anything else. That was the duty of the parents. But it was the duty of the State to educate the criminal and pauper classes, to whom the State stood in loco parentis. With regard to all other classes he did not think it was their duty to do so, but only to provide the means of elementary education, and this he did not think it was their duty to do. Let them define elementary education how they liked. Some might think cyphering too much; others might think cyphering too little. He did not attempt to decide such a question; but whatever might be regarded as elementary education that he thought every child should be able to get. In drawing up the Resolution which he had the honour of submitting to the House he had been actuated by no party or sectarian motives; but with a desire, on the one hand, to relieve the public purse, and on the other, to provide a better education and a sounder education for the poorer classes than they at present possessed. He was not afraid of the middle classes letting their children grow up in ignorance, or being contented with elementary education. There was a growing conviction among all classes that an advanced education was the key-stone to an advance in life, and he was convinced that this was so deeply impressed upon the middle classes that they would not forego its advantages for their children on account of the withdrawal of the State aid of which they now avail themselves. He did not think it the duty of the Legislature to attempt to force children out of their station; but he did think they ought to give them the means, which few of them only would be able to use, of raising themselves. It was not his object to discourage education in any way, but to confine the duty of the State within its proper limits, and to ensure that what education was given by the State should be adopted and given to the poorest classes. He believed the result of adopting the principle of his Resolution would be to give a better education to the children of the poor, and to reduce the amount of the Vote to half its present amount in a few years. The hon. Member concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given notice.

§ MR. AUGUSTUS SMITH
seconded the Motion.

SIR GEORGE LEWIS
Sir, I have collected from the debates which have taken place in this House from day to day that it is the general opinion of the House that Motions made on going into Committee of Supply should be confined, as far as may be, to questions of urgency. I admit that it is the privilege of any hon. Member to bring any subject before the House on the question that the Speaker leave the chair in order that the House go into Committee of Supply. I do not contest this abstract right; but it is desirable, looking at the present period of the Session and the quantity of business remaining to be transacted in Committee of Supply, and also at the inconvenience to which hon. Gentlemen are put who come to the House in expectation of Supply coming on, that, as far as possible, the business of Supply should commence at a tolerably early hour of the evening. The question now before the House not only cannot be considered as urgent, but it is only by a straining of the rules of the House that it can be brought forward at all, for upon the Motion to-night that the House go into Committee of Supply to consider the Vote No. 1 on the paper, the hon. Gentleman asks us to anticipate the discussion of the Educational Vote No. 4, which may probably not come on for ten days or a fortnight. The Motion amounts, in fact, to a proposal for the reduction of that Vote. The hon. Member expresses himself in general terms, and it is difficult to under stand what is the precise meaning of his proposition. I think the present Vote is limited to elementary instruction and to training schools. I do not believe that it is the intention of those who framed the Education Vote to go beyond elementary instruction. But if we wait till that Vote comes on till the Vice President of the Committee of Council of Education shall have made his statement and fully explained the different items, then, if hon. Gentlemen propose to reduce or omit any 302 of those items, we should know what it is we are discussing. As it is the hon. Gentleman has given us a general dissertation on the subject of education, which is less called for, inasmuch as there has been lately published a Report of the Commissioners on Education, in which the whole of this great subject is treated, and very little advantage appears to me to be likely to be gained by these preliminary discussions. I trust, therefore, that the House will see that this is an inconvenient anticipation of the Vote which stands in a subsequent part of the Miscellaneous Estimates, and that question will be better discussed when the Committee is asked to vote the large sum of money which will be asked for educational purposes.

§ SIR JOHN TRELAWNY
said, he did not think the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department was quite fair with his Friend; for no one could tell exactly what Votes were were coming to-night.

§ MR. BERNAL OSBORNE
said, he did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary would consider the few words he wished to utter on an important question a matter of urgency. But there was a practice which might degenerate into a serious nuisance—he meant the inspection of Volunteers in Hyde Park of an evening.

§ MR. SPEAKER
said, the hon. Gentleman was out of order.