CLASS IV.—EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND ART.

HC Deb 16 June 1884 vol 289 cc427-548

MR. MUNDELLA

The first Vote in Class IV. which I have to ask from the Committee is that for education in England and Wales, and the sum required for the year 1884–5, for the first time in the history of the Education Department, exceeds the sum of £3,000,000 sterling. The amount is £3,016,167, and, as compared with the last grant of £2,938,930 for 1883–4, shows an increase of £77,237. Sir, the increase mainly arises under the head of "Annual Grants for Day and Evening Schools," which now stand at £2,680,542, being an increase of £70,069 over the Estimate for 1883–4. This is accounted for by an anticipated increase in the average attendance of children attending the public elementary schools of about 3 per cent, which brings the numbers lip to 3,265,319, and an increase in the rate of grants for scholars of 2d. per head, which has been taken at 16s. 4d. per head for day scholars; while the grant for the scholars in the evening schools is estimated at 9s. 4d., compared with 9s. 3d. in the previous year and 8s. for the year 1882–3. Since these Estimates were framed, the rate of grant per day scholar actually earned under the New Code has risen to a little over 16s. 5d. per head, and it is quite possible that this rate may be maintained throughout the year. An unusually mild winter naturally affects the Estimate by increasing the number in the average attendance, and consequently increasing the earnings of the school; and there are indications that, in consequence of the recent mild winter, the calculations of the Department may be disturbed to this or even to a larger extent. The remainder of the increase in. the Estimates is accounted for under two heads —first, by an increase of £3,610 in the grants to Training Colleges caused partly by an under-Estimate in 1883–4, and partly by an increase in the number of daily students in the Training Colleges —namely, 19 men and 71 women over the number last year; and, in the second place, by an increase of £7,350 in the cost of inspection of schools, due to the ordinary increase of salaries and to an increase of 18 Sub-Inspectors who have been promoted from the rank of assistants to full Inspectorship. Two Inspectors have retired, and 16 additional Inspectors have been appointed, together with 16 Inspectors' assistants; and the increase is also due, to some extent, to the appointment of a Directress of needle-work and her assistants. The only decrease to which I have to call the attention of the Committee is that of £2,800 under the sub-head of "Certificates for payment of Children's Fees," which are now moribund. Before commenting on these figures, the Committee will, perhaps, allow me to say what has been the expenditure for the year 1883–4. The sum granted for 1883–4 was £2,938,930. The actual expenditure was £2,938,587, leaving a saving of £343. The grant for day and night scholars was £2,610,473, and the expenditure was £2,614,069, leaving a deficiency of £3,596 in excess of the grant, which was met by savings on other subheads of the Vote. It was estimated that the grant to day scholars would be paid at 16s. 2d. on an average attendance of 3,208,598chilJrcn. The grants actually paid were 16s. 4½d. on an average attendance of 3,178,899 children, being 2½d. in excess of our calculation. There is a slight reduction in the rate of increase in the average attendance which occurred immediately after the New Code came into operation, just before the close of the year. The Old Code was in operation last year, and the Now Code also, and immediately the New Code came into operation there was a slight diminution in the average attendance, which is accounted for by better registration. I am glad to say that, though the New Code has been in operation for 12 months, there has not been a single case of fraudulent registration under it; whereas there were a large number of such cases under the old system, there have been none whatever under the new. It is clear, therefore, that the old system operated but too often as a temptation to fraudulent registration. Now, Sir, I have to ask the attention of the Committee to the rate of progress during the past year. The grants for 1883–4 were paid partly under the Code of 1881 and partly under the New Code of 1883. The payments under the New Code were at the rate of 16s. 5d. per day scholar, an increase of 4¾d. over the rate of 1882–3; but as the normal rate of increase under the Old Code was at least 2d. the increase due to changes in the Code may be taken at 2½d. per day scholar. The schools inspected in 1883 were 18,540, being an increase of 251 over the preceding year. Those schools afforded accommodation for 4,670,000 children, being an increase of 132,000 over the previous year. The number of scholars on the register was 4,273,000, being an increase of 84,000 over the previous year. The scholars in average attendance were 3,127,000, showing an increase of 112,000 over the preceding year; and I may call the attention of the Committee to the fact that this is a gain in excess of the increase on the Register. The number individually examined shows a still greater increase, having been 2,276,000, and showing an increase of 157,000. The classes under examination, although they were expected under the New Code to fall off considerably, have produced quite the same results, and were 289 as against 280 in the preceding year. The percentage of average attendance to the numbers on the books was 73.1, being an increase of 1.1 while the percentage of passes in Standard examinations was 82.89, or an increase of .09. The proportion of scholars examined in Standard IV. and upwards to all scholars individually examined—a point of great interest to the Committee—was 29.3, being an increase of .77 in the whole number examined against 28.6 in the preceding year. The number of certificated and assistant teachers was 52,706, showing an increase of 4,588 over the preceding year. The number of pupil teachers was 26,428, showing a decrease of 1,857; consequently there has been altogether a steady increase in the number of teachers; and I think the Committee will agree with me that the figures I have quoted show that we have been making steady progress all along the line. The most noticeable features are the figures indicating improvement of quality, which show a more rapid increase than they have done for some years past. The increase of scholars on the register was 84,000, being an increase of 2 per cent in the number. There was also an increase of 3 per cent on the average attendance, or 12,000, and of 7.48 per cent in the scholars examined, or 15,000, whereas we expected a reduction. Now, the truest test of our progress in elementary education is to be found in two things—in the increase of the average attendance, and in the increase in the numbers presented for examination in the higher Standards. In regard to the increase of the average attendance, it is very remarkable what has been the operation of the Act of 1870 on the average attendance of children now at school. The highest point that had ever been touched before the passing of the Act was in the year 1870 on the year it was passed—when it rose to 68.1 per cent of the number on the register. As the neglected children were forced into the schools the average attendance steadily declined, until in 1875 it reached 66.9. From that time to this there has been, notwithstanding the constant influx of large numbers on the roll, a steady increase in the average attendance. It has gone up now from the lowest point—66.9 in 1875, until this year it has reached 73.1; that is an increase of nearly 7 per cent, and the increase itself has been steady. Last year it was 72, the year before it was 70.8, and so it has steadily gone on from the year 1875 until now, when it has reached 73.1. It will be useful to com pare England and Scotland in this respect. The Act for Scotland was passed two years later, and Scotland has never yet recovered its average attendance. The average attendance of the number on the register fell from 78.6 in 1873 to 75.3 in 1881. I am glad to say that in 1882 the number rose to 75.3, and in 1876 to 76.1. In all other respects it is better than England, except, perhaps, in regard to the proportion of the number on the register, in regard to which they were much higher at the time of the passing of the Education Act in 1872, and they have not yet recovered their original position, being still 2.5 below what they were in 1873. The reason of the falling-off is not, I think, difficult to account for. Scotland has had great difficulties to contend with in the changes which have been made previous to last year, and better results may be looked forward to next year. It has been suggested that the application of the at tendance order to Scotland would be productive of considerable advantage. I come now to a more remarkable test, which, after all, is the best we can possibly have as to the sort of educational work we are doing, and that is the test of the number examined in the higher Standards. I have taken three periods in order to give the Committee some indication of this work. In 1869 the number examined in Standard IV. and upwards was 173,662; but I want the Committee to understand that the Standard IV. of that day is the Standard III. of the present, so that if we had limited it to that the number passed has really been 83,114, or 11.93 of the total number examined. Now, in 1879, the number rose from 83,114 to 388,680, and in 1883 the number was 660,691 — that is to say, that it rose from 11.93 per cent in 1869 to 26.08 per cent in 1879, and 29.03 per cent in 1883. That is a remarkable result, and in Scotland the numbers examined in Standard IV. and upwards were 30,881; but there also the Standard was raised one, so that the 16,222 exclusive of Standard IV., equal to Standard III. of later years, amounted to 15.07 per cent in 1869. In 1879 the number rose to 85,890, and to 121,899 in 1883, or 36.86 per cent, or practically 37 per cent of all the scholars examined in Scotland, who were examined in Standard IV. and upwards—a very satisfactory state of things indeed. I may mention that in 1882, although there was only an increase of 227 in the schools inspected, the certificated and assistant teachers increased by 3,538; while, on the other hand, the limit imposed on the number of pupil teachers employed in a school caused the number of pupil teachers to decrease by 5,354. In like manner, in 1883, although the increase in the schools was only 251, the certificated and assistant teachers increased by 4,588, and the pupil teachers decreased by 1,857. The result of the two years was an increase in the number of the certificated and assistant teachers, and a decrease of 7,211 in the number of pupil teachers. That I think is satisfactory from more points of view than one, but chiefly on the ground that the employment of pupil teachers to do so much work has been injurious to them, and also in consequence of the long hours they had to be engaged. I am glad to be able to announce that we are rapidly training teachers to supply the waste in the pupil teachers. This enables us to dispense with the services of a considerable number of these boys every year, and I think that we are able to do better without them. Next, with reference to the school expenses. The cost of the maintenance of Board Schools per scholar in average attendance was, in 1882, £2s. 1s 6½d., and last year it was £2 1s. 3½d being a decrease of 3d. per scholar on account of Board Schools. In the Voluntary Schools, on the other hand, the cost in 1882 was £1 14s.6¾d., and in 1880 it was £1 14s. 10¼d., being an increase of 3½d. per scholar. That includes London; but I will exclude London in order to show the difference. If we exclude London the cost of Board Schools throughout the country last year was £1 17s. 0¾d., being an increase of a farthing, while in the Voluntary Schools it was £1 14s. 3½d., being an increase of 3¼d. But in London the Board Schools cost £2 15s.,3¼d. per head against £2 16s. 5¼d. in the preceding year, being a diminution of 1s. 2d. per head in regard to the scholars in the Board Schools. In the Voluntary Schools in London the cost was £2 1s. 5d. per head as against £2 1s. 2d. in the preceding year, being an increase of 3d. per scholar in the Voluntary Schools in London. I am glad to acknowledge this, and I am glad to know that the Voluntary Schools are doing all that they possibly can to make themselves efficient; and I may add that many of the Voluntary Schools are at the very head of the schools of the country — particularly the Wesleyan Schools. As far as I have been able to gauge them under the New Code in respect of the older scholar, they stand at the head of the schools of the country— Board Schools and all others. From the Table I have submitted to the House, it will be seen that the cost of maintaining a child in the Board Schools has diminished considerably in London and slightly decreased in the rest of the country, whereas the cost of maintaining scholars in the Voluntary Schools has increased both in London and elsewhere. There are some points revealed by the statement I have made to which I think I ought to call the attention of the Committee. The first is that there are really some weak places in our system, and especially in the lower Standard, at which children pass out of school. I am constantly receiving complaints from managers in the country, and especially from the clergy, that they lose their best scholars earlier and earlier every year. This arises from the fact that the Standard of total exemption in nearly 9,000 parishes of England is the fourth. Of course, the children are attending better; they are being better taught by better teachers, and the result is that they sooner pass through the teachers' hands. There is another reason—namely, that we have taken specific subjects with the approval of the House generally; and the children can now pass out of school with nothing but the three R's, and one or two class subjects at 10 years of age; and unless they come under the Factories and Workshops Act, these children are put to labour at too early an age. [Mr. J. G. HUBBARD: Agricultural labour.] Yes; domestic labour of any kind, and agricultural labour which does not bring them under the Factories and Workshops Act. We have no control over this. It is a matter, for the present, entirely under the control of the local authorities. I will give an illustration by stating what actually happened last year. Nearly 40 per cent of the whole number of scholars who passed Standard IV. in 1882, and 50 per cent of those who passed Standard V., disappeared entirely from our schools in 1883, so that when there is a complaint that so many children do not pass Standard VI. the answer is obvious. Until we can raise the Standard and fix a minimum Standard, which every child should attain, we cannot hope that a larger number will pass in the higher Standards. I know it may be argued, and it is argued, that the labour of a child is required to assist the family. Very often that is so; but 10 years of age is too early for a child to be withdrawn from school. We are the only exception, and this the only country in Europe in which—what I may call and what I am sure the Committee will agree with me in calling—this very inhuman system is continued. I hope hon. Gentlemen will consult the excellent Report of the Technical Education Commissioners, where they will see what bearing this has, not only on the intelligence and the morals of the people, but also on the industrial interests of the country in future. Scotland is once more ahead of England in this respect. The minimum Standard enacted last year for Scotland was Standard III. for half-time labour and Standard V. for fulltime labour, and I see that the Commissioners strongly recommend that the same measure should be applied to England. Personally, I should be very thankful to see it, and I do trust that the time is not far distant -when we shall have Standard V. fixed as the minimum Standard, under which children shall be allowed to leave school. After all, there are very few children who could not pass Standard V. after reaching 11 or 12 years of age; and that would decidedly be much earlier in point of age, and much lower in point of educational acquirement, than is passed in countries far poorer than England, and which strongly condemn the fixing of so low a limit as Standard V. No child is allowed in Germany to pass out of school until he is able to pass Standard VI.; and even then, neither in Germany nor Switzerland, he cannot be employed upon full time until he has reached 14 years of age; and he must then attend night school in order to improve his education and confirm it until he reaches 15, 16, or even 17 years of age, as the case may be. We are, I am sorry to say, in this respect far below our neighbours. The next great defect to which I must call the attention of the Committee is in the irregularity of the attendance. The Technical Education Commissioners report that when they went about Switzerland, Germany, and Austria, they found 95 per cent, and in some instances 98 per cent, of the children upon the register in average attendance. I am thankful to be able to report an average attendance of 73. Now, what does that mean? It means that there is among the children on the register an average daily absenteeism of 1,100,000 children in England and Wales. This is largely due to two things—first, no doubt, to parental indifference, and, in the second place, very largely—and even more largely—to neglect of duty on the part of the Local Authorities. The clergy have almost overwhelmed me with letters on this question, and I do not know how to answer them. I have no power to interfere with the Local Authorities. We do what we can to stir them up; but the clergy and the farmers are not altogether at one in the matter. The clergy are anxious that the children should go regu- larly to school; but I am afraid that the Boards of Guardians are the worst authorities who could be constituted for that purpose, because all their interests and predilections are opposed to enforcing attendance. Many instances have been brought under my notice, in which Boards of Guardians have evinced a decided repugnance to enforcing attendance at school. It is often said that the children cannot attend school regularly in the rural districts, because of the bad weather, and that they are prevented from attending in the towns on account of poverty. Those are said to be the great difficulties which exist; but my own examination of the question makes it somewhat difficult to believe this, because, sometimes, I have found in some of the rural schools the very best average attendance and the very best results. I was recently spending my holidays in Hertfordshire, and I found, just on the borders of Lord Salisbury's park, one of the best schools in England, in which, I believe, the scholars earned 21s. 6d. per head last year. The school has been established for a quarter of a century, and it is managed entirely by a lady, who knows her business thoroughly. Everyone who is acquainted with Miss Franks, the lady in question, must know how thoroughly she has studied her business, and how thoroughly she is master of it. I never go into a neighbourhood without visiting the schools, and I have learnt from all classes in this neighbourhood that that school has been a perfect blessing to the whole district, and that it has done more for the immediate neighbourhood than almost any other institution in it. The population is scattered; indeed, there is no sign of any population about the neighbourhood. Hatfield is three miles off, and children do not attend the school from Hatfield, because a very good school already exists in that town. The children walk two or three miles a-day to the school. There is a little botany taught there, and the drawing which is learnt is very useful to the children. A joiner who can set out his own piece of work in consequence of the drawing he has learnt at school is of much greater use to his master than one who is unable to do so, and the study of drawing is very strongly recommended by the Technical Education Commissioners as being exceedingly valuable to English work- men. Even an agricultural labourer, if he can set out and express with his pencil the work on which he is engaged, will find that he is much more valuable to his master, and much more capable of securing his own interests and advancement. Again, I am acquainted with a school in a parish in Buckinghamshire, where the wife of an hon. Member of this House is the manager, and where the results are excellent; and I could point to many other rural schools of a similar character. In the next place, when we come to consider the poverty in the large towns, where is there poverty such as that suffered by the poor Jews in the neighbourhood of Spitalfields? Yet they have there the largest school in the United Kingdom— I am not sure that it is not the largest in Europe. I have been told that there is one abroad capable of containing 5,000 children; but there are actually 3,500 children in this school, and the average attendance is 95 percent. Now, these poor children are very largely composed of children of foreign origin. Of 400 or 500 of them who have come in since last February, nine - tenths are the children of Russian and Polish Jews flying from persecution, or from the miseries they have had to endure in Russia and Poland. These children make 95 per cent of average attendance, and in England they pass the very highest Standards. [Mr. JESSE COLINGS: Where is the school?] It is the Jews' Free School, in Bell Lane, Spitalfields; and if the hon. Member wishes to spend an interesting hour, he cannot do better than visit it. It is a Voluntary School; and I believe that the social influences which are brought to bear upon it are great and invaluable. The children are well cared for, and are looked after by the rich. Somebody said to me the other day— "They work on the Talmud system;" and I must say I am surprised to find how France, Germany, and other countries seem to have copied all their best things from that system. I wish now for the attention of the Committee while I endeavour to show what can be done in order to improve the average attendance which is at the root of most of the mischief of over-pressure. Now, there is nothing which embarrasses the teacher so much as irregular attendance—there is nothing be difficult to contend with as to have a child at school for a day and then staying away for a week. To bring up children who attend irregularly, and to keep them on a level with the rest of the class, it is necessary to undertake constant employment; and the greatest difficulty is experienced in fitting them for examination. Now, I have here a Report, which will shortly be in the hands of Members, from Mr. Moncrieff, who has now retired from the Education Department, and who was certainly one of the ablest men connected with it. He reports what has been done by one of his Inspectors — Mr. Groves. Mr. Groves was sent by himself from Huddersfield, in the North of England, where his health had broken down, to Somersetshire. I see my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Somersetshire (Mr. R. H. Paget) in his place, and I think he will be aware of the result. Mr. Groves, when he reached Somersetshire, went about his work very judiciously. He negotiated with nearly all the Boards of Guardians and the School Boards in his new district; and although some of the Guardians would not and have not done anything to improve the average attendance, the rest, by giving notice to the parents and pointing out to them their duty, showing the importance of sending their children regularly to school, and by following it up wherever there was neglect, has succeeded in raising the average attendance in these rural districts from 73 to 83 per cent, or 10 per cent above the average attendance of England. In one district the attendance has been raised to 86.1 per cent. If that can be accomplished by a little cooperation between the local authorities, the teachers, the managers, and the Inspectors, I think it is worthy of imitation. I hope that all who are interested in Voluntary Schools will see what can be done by such action. If the same principle were adopted by the whole of the school managers in England — if they would only follow this example tomorrow, it would lighten the next year's Budget of the Chancellor of the Exchequer very considerably. It does not mean the mere increase of the attendance by so much per cent; but it means, also, the raising of the educational attainments of the children; and there is a possibility that it would make a difference of £200,000 or £300,000 in the expense of conducting the schools next year. I have thought it worth while to bring this matter before the Committee in order that the attention of hon. Members may be called to it, and that they may see what may be done. Regularity like this lightens the labour of both children and teachers, adds very much to the comfort of the family, and materially increases the income of the schools concerned. There are some subsidiary matters connected with the Education Department which I should like to mention. We have this year, for the first time, a Report from Dr. Stainer, the Musical Inspector of the Training Colleges, who has succeeded the late Mr. Hullah. With Dr. Stainer are associated two assistants, Mr. Barrett and Mr. M'Naught. Mr. Hullah did much to popularize musical education in England; but he was bitterly opposed to the Tonic-Sol-Fa system. Dr. Stainer only gives his assistance in the examination of musical training, and it is his duty to inspect and examine the musical teaching given in the Training Colleges. He has nothing to do with the teaching of it in the schools. For my own part, I wish sincerely that the scope of Dr. Stainer's work could be enlarged; but at present the remuneration he receives is very small, and I am afraid that it would not be to his interests to increase his labours. At the same time, I think it is in the power of the Education Department, if not to make the English people a musical people, at all events, to make vocal music popular from one end of the country to the other; and I cannot conceive anything that would be a greater gain. There are many eminent authorities who, in speaking of the capacity of the English for music, raise them very much higher than I had imagined. I, myself, was present last July with Dr. Stainer at the Crystal Palace, when I had great pleasure in listening to 5,000 school children singing together from notes. They had never been grouped together for that purpose before; and the effect was most magnificent—almost magical. There is nothing which the children enjoy so much as their singing. They are never so joyous and so happy as when singing good poetry and good music, and it would be an immense gain if we could make music popular from one end of the country to the other. I have spoken of the appointment of a Directress of needle- work. I am glad to say that she is a marvellous teacher, and that she has been very successful in teaching the combined system. She raised up one of the schools in the county of Leicestershire from almost the lowest point to that of one of the best in the Kingdom, and now she is conducting the inspecting staff for pupil teachers and the Training Colleges. What is wanted to be taught is good useful, plain work, not too trying for the children, but such work as will make them good and useful housewives. The Circular which was issued respecting' the establishment of school savings banks has also been successful. The first bank was established in 1879, and in that year there were 848 school savings banks established. They now numbered 1,718, and it is hoped that the movement will go on increasing. Having stated to the Committee the progress which has been made during the past year, it would, perhaps, not be out of place if I were to call the attention of the Committee to the financial and to the educational growth of the country with a view to stock-taking—as to what we are spending and what we are getting for our money. It has been the duty of every Minister who has occupied my position to come down to the House every year to ask for a very considerable increased grant over that of the preceding year. I am afraid that I have been no exception to the rule, and that there will be no exception this year. The Estimate now laid before the Committee is the largest which has ever been presented to it. I do not see my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings) present; but my hon. Friend said he would never be content until the Education Estimates were as large as the Estimates for the Army and Navy. Now, although they are not as large as those for the Army and Navy, they are becoming very respectable. The demands upon the Department are constantly increasing. A short time ago my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard) came before me with a very influential deputation to demand from us what would cause an increase of nearly 4s. per head upon all the children, and would add something like £1,000,000 a-year to the Estimates. The demand for Technical Education, Intermediate Education, Museums, Colleges, Free Libraries, and Art, all means increased grants and largely increased expenditure, and I confess that this expenditure, which has been increasing, and is still increasing, seems to me likely to go on increasing; and if I am to be frank to the Committee, I do not for one moment regret it. All that I hope is that we shall take care that whatever we do is not done lavishly or extravagantly, but that we got full value for our money. I see no reason why this should not be the case, and if it is so, I believe it will be the most remunerative expenditure we could embark in. And now let me point out to the Committee the financial growth of the Education Estimates. Here again I take three periods, covering a period of 15 years. I take first the Estimates of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) in 1869–70, which was the year of the passing of the Act; next the Estimates of my noble Friend the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) of 1879–80; and, lastly, the Estimates for the year 1884–5, which are those now before the Committee. The Estimates for Public Education in England and Wales in 1869–70 amounted to £721,000; in 1879–80 to £2,481,000; and for 1884–5 they are £3,016,000. For Scotland the Estimates were, in 1869–70, £120,000;forl879–80,£470,000; and now, in 1884–5, they are £475,000. For the Science and Art Department, the Estimates were, for the United Kingdom, in 1869–70, £232,000; in 1879–80, £322,000; and are now, in 1884–5, £365,000. The total Estimates for Public Education, Science, and Art, for the United Kingdom, were, in Class IV., in 1869–70, £1,628,000. Those were the Estimates of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster). In 1879–80 they amounted to £4,153,000, and those were the Estimates of the noble Lord opposite. And in 1884–5 they have reached £4,853,000, and they are the Estimates I am submitting to-day. They have tints grown in 15 years "(from 1869–70 to 1884–5) from £1,628,000 to £4,853,000. The increase in the Votes for Public Education has been, in England and Wales, £2,295,000, or 318 per cent; and in Scotland, £355,000, or 296 per cent; while the increase in the Science and Art Department has been £133,000, or 58 per cent. For all the Votes in Class IV. the increase has been £3,225,000, or 198 per cent. During the same period the Irish Education Vote, with which I have nothing to do, increased from £374,000 to £733,000, an increase of £359,000, or 96 per cent. Having shown the Committee the natural growth of the Estimates, let me now ask the Committee to consider what we are getting for our money. I will endeavour to take a survey of the educational position, and I will take the same periods for showing the educational growth as I have taken in regard to the Estimates, in order that we may fairly see the actual results. Well, Sir, the average attendance in Great Britain in 1869–70 —that is, in England, Scotland, and Wales—was, according to the number on the register, 1,797,388; in 1879 it was 4,219,355; and in 1883 it was 4,842,545. Those numbers were actually on the books. Having given the numbers, I will show the increase in the grants.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

What was the increase per cent in the average attendance?

MR. MUNDELLA

It was 73.1 in England, and 78 in Scotland. Well, having shown the numbers, let me show the increase in the grants. I have given the Committee the increase in the higher Standards in a former statement, and I now come to the grants for England and Wales. The rate of the grant earned in 1869 was 9s. 9¼ d in 1879, 15s.5¾ d.; and in 1883 it was 16s. 2¾ d. For Scotland, in 1869, in was 9s.10¾ d.; in 1879, 16s. 11d and in 1883,17s. 8¾ d I thought it would be desirable to ascertain the number of attendances up to the very latest date, and I have been able to obtain them within a few thousands. The Return gives the number of children on the roll in the schools to-day throughout Great Britain, and this is how it comes out. The estimated number of children on the Register at the present time in the public elementary, certified efficient, workhouse, industrial, and military schools in Great Britain is 5,080,000, or almost exactly one-sixth of the population estimated up to this date. The numbers are made up as follows:— In elementary schools in England and Wales, 4,360,000; in Scotland 580,000; in certified efficient schools, 22,000; and in workhouse, industrial, military, and other schools, 56,000; making a total of 5,018,000.

MR. J. G. TALBOT

Is that the number in attendance?

MR. MUNDELLA

No; that is the number on the register. To this must be added 62,000, attending the night schools, making a total of 5,080,000. Now, Sir, it has always been the idea of the Education Department and of educationalists generally that one-sixth of the people ought to be in attendance at school. In 1869–70, one in 14 of the population were on the register; and to-day, exclusive of all private adventure schools of all classes and of middle and higher schools, whether endowed or not, we have one in six of the population on the rolls of the schools. This is a result which I am sure everybody must be congratulated upon—the country itself most of all—and the Committtee will not forget the debt it owes to my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), who now sits behind me, for his share in the work. I have endeavoured now to show what is the equivalent for this great and growing expenditure, and I have make a survey as well as I am able. Notwithstanding-all we have done, there are many things that still remain to be done; but, although there are many places in which, the education supplied is still imperfect, one result must inevitably flow from this provision of education. The people can no longer be disqualified by illiteracy and ignorance from the higher duties of citizenship. The discipline of the school prepares the children for the duties of everyday life. The Reports of the Commissioners on Technical Education teem with evidences not only of the moral and political advantages which flow from education, but also of the industrial advantages which follow from a judicious expenditure upon education. I should like to quote very briefly one or two lines from the Report of the Commissioners, because we often, in this House, grudge this expenditure to the local authorities. When in Baden the Commissioners examined the schools there, and asked why so large an expenditure was incurred in school buildings and school furniture, because the expenditure there in that respect is one which exceeds anything we ever dreamt of. They expended about £33 per head in school buildings, and in providing class-rooms for the scholars and masters. There is a fully qualified master for every class-room. The answer the Commissioners received was to the effect that in that free country it would require much courage to oppose any scheme for improving the education of the children, which was regarded as their most valuable inheritance. Now, I may say that the same statement runs through the Reports of the Commissioners in regard to almost every district which was visited by them. They tell us that the moral, political, and industrial advantages which follow from education are appreciated abroad quite as highly, if not more highly, than in England. Both in Germany and in Switzerland a strong feeling exists among rich and poor as to the necessity of education; and in the latter country, although the ordinary expense of education had been increased by many millions, so far from reducing the expenditure a, sum of £50,000 has just been voted for providing a chemical library. There is one other point which, though not entirely within the scope of the Education Department, I hope the Committee will permit me to refer to as illustrating, at any rate, the value of the work in which we are engaged. Many Members will recollect an excellent article which lately appeared on the subject of education written by M. Emile De Laveleye. He says— Whence comes it that with such imperfect laws the English are such a great nation? And his answer is— It is due to their religious principles, and to the power of their religious sentiment in England. and he points out that this feeling makes England altogether another country as compared with any country on the Continent. He illustrates this statement by a reference to that marvellous institution— the English Sunday School. This is the religious side of the question which objectors tell us in this country our teaching neglects. They say we have introduced the secular system, which is degrading to religion, and that we are lowering the moral and religious tone of the people by our educational system. ["Hear, hear!"] An hon. Member opposite cheers. What is the evidence that he knows anything at all about it? A most superficial acquaintance with the whole subject shows just the reverse—that, just in proportion as we have increased the secular know- ledge of the people, we have increased the amount of quality in the religion imparted to them. Never, in the history of England, has so much been given to the people of England in the shape of religious knowledge than is given today. Let me give the Committee one solitary illustration of it. I have taken a deep interest in the growth of Sunday-School education in England from my early youth, and I will refer the Committee to the statistics which have been prepared by Mr. Fountain Hartley, the Statistical Secretary of the Sunday School Union. His Report is based on the recent Census Returns, and probably upon the most reliable source of information. Let me read his own words. He says— It is a matter of congratulation and thankfulness that the predictions which some persona have given utterance to—namely, that the spread of Day School education would do away with the necessity of Sunday Schools and add to their gradual decline — have not been fulfilled, hut that, on the contrary, the proportion of children in the Sunday School has never advanced more rapidly than during the last few years. During the last few years the number of children sent to the Sunday Schools has been greater than those sent to the Day Schools. The actual number of children on the register of Sunday Schools in England and Wales, according to Mr. Hartley's calculation, is 5,200,776, and there are 593,427 teachers—the most marvellous voluntary effort in the cause of education that any country has ever seen. I want to show, if the Committee will permit me, how the Day Schools have affected the Sunday Schools. Just as children have been taken from the streets and have been placed in the Day Schools they have been able to acquire better information and better knowledge; and instead of the Sunday School teachers having to instruct ignorant children they have to deal with children who have already acquired some knowledge of the facts of religion, and who have been brought into schools with receptive minds. The consequence has been that the progress the pupils have made has been proportionately good. In the Church of England Schools there are upwards of 250,000 children on the register; and. the teachers, together with those of the Sunday School Union, have been exerting themselves to the utmost to improve the training of these Sunday School children. The consequence has been that the Sunday School teachers have been compelled to train themselves on the week days in order that they may not be found unprepared for the work on Sunday. Then, altogether, I say, without hesitation, that the School Boards have done more for the religious education of the country than any other institution that has ever been set up. I say so deliberately. Without the action of the School Boards we never should have forced the children into the Voluntary Schools and the lower schools; and the fact that we have now nearly 17,000,000 of the population of England and Wales under the School Boards, and the whole of the population of Scotland, and that they have been steadily improving the Day School education, has resulted in a vast improvement in the religious and moral tone of the people of this country. Some of the Reports which have been received from the Inspectors show what marvellous influence our Day Schools have exercised among the poorest and most wretched of the population. When the children came to the schools in the first instance they were in a filthy condition, ragged, and covered with vermin, so as hardly to be tolerable to the teachers who had to instruct them. Their parents took little interest in them or their doings, and constantly came to the schools in order to abuse the teachers, using language of the most abominable character. Within two years everything was changed; the children themselves are hardly known as the same children, and the teachers say that the parents are really grateful for the efforts which are being made for their children. The teachers say that the mothers come to the schools to apologize for their former bad language, and send little kindly messages or a few flowers, or some token which shows they are grateful for what is being done. There are one or two other things which I will briefly refer to. Is it not worthy of note that three Royal Commissions have reported recently on this all-important question of education? The first is the Commission on Technical Education. I hardly know how to express my obligations and gratitude for the work those Commissioners have done. There never was a more important body of evidence placed before the House of Commons on any question than those Commissioners have laid before us. It is not only a compendium of the old educational system of Europe and America; it not only deals with the higher class education of the people; but it shows the social and moral effect of religious instruction. It is an admirable Report, and my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. B. Samuelson) and his Colleagues deserve the gratitude of the House and the country for it. That six Gentlemen should have done what they have done; should have worked so hard for three years; should have travelled from one end of Europe to the other again, again, and again; and should have laboured so hard in the work at all, is a matter of suprise. But these Gentlemen have also visited every part of England, Ireland, and Scotland; they have presented excellent Reports both in regard to Ireland and Scotland; and they have done all this not only at the sacrifice of their own time, but at their own expense, having had to put their hands into their own pockets to the extent of some hundreds of pounds a-year.

MR. JESSE COLLINGS

It is a great shame.

MR. MUNDELLA

I cannot agree with that remark; I do not think it is a shame. There is nothing so noble in the public service as gratuitous public work. The best work which has ever been done in England has been done gratuitously, and I am sure that in regard to this particular Report it will receive the very serious consideration, of Parliament. Then there is another Report from the Commission on Industrial and Reformatory Schools, which, whenever Parliament has time to consider those questions, must be carefully looked at. Scotland has more interest in the subject, and there is no doubt that the whole system of our Reformatory and Industrial Schools needs reform. In the third place, there has been the Report of another Commission—the Crofters Commission—which is valuable from an educational point of view in regard to the teaching of English to the Gaelic-speaking population of Scotland. I will not say that I think the Education Department ought to undertake the teaching of Gaelic. I cannot imagine, however, that an English teacher should go down to Scotland among the Gaelic-speaking population, and, simply speaking his own language, train them like parrots, without being able to give them the Gaelic equivalent for what he teaches. It would be just the same as if one of us were to employ a native of Italy to teach Italian to our children who was unable to speak the English language. I must also make some acknowledgment for the services which have been rendered to the cause of education by the Report in reference to the city and Borough Guilds. Baron Bramwell and other Members of that Commission have fully shown that the industrial training given ill connection with those Guilds in Science and Art have been of the greatest advantage. In point of fact, the work which has been done has been most excellent. It is impossible to overestimate the value of the work which has been done at the now College in South Kensington, and the examinations now taking place all over the country in connection with the grants show that excellent work is being done in bringing Art and industrial training within the reach of the working classes of the country. There is only one other matter upon which I will trespass on the patience of the Committee, and it has reference to the Society which was started some years ago for the purpose of introducing the study of Art into the schools of this country. Under their auspices decorative Art and many other matters have received a great impetus, and nothing is more advantageous to the child than being taught to appreciate and enjoy the beautiful forms. The progress which this study has made is shown in the reproduction of some of the best types of drawing, and in some of the best copies of the old masters. Not only is that so, but a number of the most beautiful designs have been supplied, and the Society complete their Report by contending that nothing but the best forms of design ought to be placed before the eye of the scholar, in order that a true artistic feeling may be promoted. Now, Sir, I have to thank the Committee for the great patience with which it has heard me. The Estimates which I have submitted have been prepared for the last time by Sir Francis Sandford, the late Secretary of the Education Department. After a long and very honourable service in that Department he has felt it incumbent upon him to retire; and I am sure that we all feel he is entitled to some reward. He has now taken up a post in which the duties will be less arduous, but not less useful than those which he has been in the habit of performing for us. I am sure that the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) and every Member of this House who has ever transacted business with Sir Francis Sandford will feel that his retirement is a serious loss to the country. I can conceive nothing more difficult than the administration of the Education Acts if it were not for the services and able assistance of a man occupying the position which Sir Francis Sandford has filled, and which he so ably administered with tact, temper, and sound judgment. In all probability the very success of the administration of the Acts depends upon the manner in which the Department is assisted by such a man. His retirement is a great loss to us; but we cannot grudge to him the rest to which he is fairly entitled; and I can only hope that he will continue to render in his new sphere the same valuable work to the country which he has performed in his old.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £2,366,167, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for Public Education in England and Wales, including Expenses of the Education Office in London.

MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON

, in moving to reduce the Vote by £5,870, being the "increase of charge for salaries of Inspectors during the year ending 31st March 1885, as compared with the year ending 31st March 1884," said: The right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council has congratulated us upon the fact that we are spending £3,000,000 of money, that we have 4,000,000 of school children, that we have 58,000 schoolmasters and 18,000 schools. Well, Sir, we may well be congratulated that we have so many means of doing good; and I think he put the whole point of the case when he said that the country will not grudge the money if we are sure that we are getting good value for it. We have now, however, arrived at a critical period in matters educational. Although the right hon. Gentleman addressed the Committee for an hour and a-half, during the whole of that hour and a-half he did not say a single word on the subject which, of all others, is filling the minds of the people with anxiety— namely, whether there is or whether there is not over-pressure and overstrain in the system of education adopted in the country? As public men, we are bound to test this Vote by its results. We are bound to ask the question whether mischief and injury is being done to the health of the children? If the lives of children and teachers are endangered, and if their future health and happiness are undermined, then I say that we have no reason to congratulate ourselves, but have every reason, to alter or modify, in some respects, our methods of administering the system. I shall be obliged, in the course of the remarks I have to make, to criticize the public conduct of the Vice President; and I wish, therefore, to make this acknowledgment, that privately he has always shown to me the greatest courtesy, and in everything I have to say I criticize him as a public man is justified, nay, in certain cases, bound, to criticize a public man. I may say that even he admits that there may be something wrong. Not very long ago, the right hon. Gentleman appeared before a Committee upon Education, whose business it was to find out what faults there were in our system, and, if possible, to remove them. Every one appeared to have a different remedy to suggest, and that of the right hon. Gentleman was certainly a little singular, and one which would never have occurred, I think, to any one but himself. The right hon. Gentleman gravely told the Committee that the only improvement he could suggest was that the Vice President of the Committee of Council should be made a Member of the Cabinet. The whole question, really turns upon whether there is over-pressure or not, and upon that point we ought to have the fullest information. Has the Vice President given us all the information in his power? On the contrary, I charge the right hon. Gentleman with withholding information. I charge him with suppressing information which ought to have been given to this House. I contend, Sir, that we have a right, on this occasion, to have all the information which can be given to us on this vital question; and if he has in his possession the opinion of any persons who, by their position, by their authority, and by their impartiality, stand so high that their opinions are worthy of consideration, I say that he is in duty bound to give to the House the information which those persons have supplied. Not very long ago, the right hon. Gentleman told us that he had invited Dr. Crichton Browne to report on the Elementary School system from a sanitary point of view. That Report, which came to hand six weeks ago, remains a sealed book to the majority of the Members of this House, but not to all, because the right hon. Gentleman has invited several Members on this side and upon the opposite Benches to see this Report, and I have been one of those Members. Strangely enough, no sooner had I made myself master of its contents than the right hon. Gentleman came to me and said— "This is confidential." Sir, it is not confidential. I decline to admit, when I am invited as a Member of Parliament to go to the Office of any Minister presiding over a Public Department, that the information I get there is confidential. I have taken care to ask those whose opinion on these matters is of more authority than that of the right hon. Gentleman, and they tell me that I have no reason to consider that information confidential, and, therefore, Sir, I shall take the liberty of laying some of the statements of Dr. Crichton Browne before the Committee; and in order that I may not add anything through failure of memory, I shall take care to give the exact words of his Report. I suppose everyone who knows anything of the Medical Profession is acquainted with the fact that no member of it stands higher than Dr. Crichton Browne, who is one of the Lord Chancellor's Visitors in Lunacy, and it is on that account that the right hon. Gentleman selected him to make the Report which the right hon. Gentleman now suppresses. That impartial man, acting in a quasi- judicial capacity, says— The general result of my observations on the schools which I have visited is to confirm the opinions which I ventured to state at our interview, that over-pressure exists to some extent in our Elementary Schools, that it is even now causing appreciable evil effects, and that if unchecked it will entail very serious consequences in future generations. What does the Committee say to that, when they are about to vote £3,000,000? Dr. Crichton Browne goes on to say— My opinion was founded on statements of medical men whom I am in the habit of meeting in every district of the country, and on my own knowledge of the fact that certain educational practices pursued in Elementary Schools are at variance with great physiological laws which cannot be set at nought with impunity. Let us see what he says about the methods of examination, the cause, above all others, of over-pressure. He says— The conclusion is inevitable that the examination has now reached such a pitch that it is impossible for a considerable proportion of the children to prepare for it adequately in the ordinary school hours, and without a prolongation of enforced brain activity which amounts to over-pressure. Then with regard to home lessons, which subject has often been brought before the right hon. Gentleman, Dr. Crichton Browne reports that— The principle of home work is bad… it is a worry and sometimes a torment to a child… and it is one of the instruments and signs of over-pressure. Then what does he state with regard to another matter which is also entirely overlooked by the right hon. Gentleman? His Report is that— In a school in Clerkenwell 40 per cent of the children sometimes come to school without breakfast, and 28 per cent go without dinner.… In a school of 475 children, 129 were pointed out to me as half-starved, and their faces gave doleful confirmation of the fact.… These children want blood, and we offer them a little brain polish; they ask for bread, and receive a problem; for milk, the tonic-sol-fa (the right hon. Gentleman thinks highly of that) is introduced to them; and in all this there is an aggravation of their sufferings and their risks…. To find that delicate children are working in exactly the same way and at exactly the same rate as healthy children is to have another convincing proof of the existence of over-pressure. Now, Sir, all these facts were within the knowledge of the right hon. Gentleman when he addressed the Committee for an hour and a-half. Why, then, did he avoid saying a single word about them? Next, with regard to payment by results, which question the right hon. Gentleman has continually had brought before him, Dr. Crichton Browne says— It is in the preparation for the annual examinations that over-pressure is brought to bear on all classes of backward, delicate, and nervous children; and it is from the system of payment by results, it must be added, that the examination takes its sting…. The present system is a payment by proximate and partial results, disregarding those of an ultimate and permanent character. Then, as to suicides, the Report is that— The number of children under 16 in the list of suicides, although still comparatively small, is swelling annually…. The mortality from nervous diseases is steadily increasing…. For every case of death that results directly from over-pressure in schools, there must be, if it is capable of causing death, thousands of instances of minor evils…. It is now certain that one-third of the children attending Elementary Schools in London suffer from habitual headache…. Short-sightedness is increasing' rapidly among our school children, and threatens to become a national infirmity in England as it is in Germany. Every word of that statement was known to the right hon. Gentleman weeks ago, and he now ventures to bring these Estimates before us without a single reference to it. He has suppressed that Report. Now, I ask hon. Members to consider the position which the right hon. Gentleman takes up. Pie assumes the same position which Mr. Robert Lowe, now Viscount Sherbrooke, assumed in 1864, and for which he was punished by a vote of this House—he assumes the rig-lit to suppress every Report in which his educational views are controverted, and to bring to our knowledge those only which support them. Whether the Reports made to the Education Department are right or not, I say that the only courageous and honourable course is to lay them before us. We are the Representatives of the people of England; we are the judges; and we have a right to say that every particle of evidence in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman should be laid before us. Let the right hon. Gentleman show that the evidence on which he founds his opinion is better than that on which we, who take the opposite view, found ours; but, at least, let official Reports which go against his opinions be laid before Parliament. But, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman has not only kept from the eyes of the public this Report of Dr. Crichton Browne, but he has ventured to throw ridicule upon it in public. He has called it a— Tirade of ethics and vital statistics which, has nothing to do with the question; and he has attempted to throw discredit upon the man who, at his own invitation, and at great personal trouble, has made this Report. That, I say, is not fair, and it is a course which I think the right hon. Gentleman ought to regret. Well, Sir, this is a terrible in- dictment against the system which is being pursued. But let us see whether Dr. Crichton Browne stands in a position of isolation with regard to the charges against the system which the right hon. Gentleman is administering. I will prove that the medical opinion of the country is almost unanimous upon the subject. Dr. Forbes Window, who is well known as a great authority, says, in a letter to The Morning Post— The whole system (the system which the right hon. Gentleman is so proud of), as at present carried on, is rotten to its very foundation. Our Educational Department congratulates itself on its progress throughout the country, whilst the children become more stinted in intellect, and are to be found to swell the wards of our lunatic asylums and idiotic institutions. Dr. Pridgen Teale, F.R.C.S., Surgeon to the Leeds Infirmary, President of the Health Department of the Social Science Congress, says— There is a consensus of skilled opinion that the educational machine of the country is at present moving on wrong lines—on lines tending not unfrequently towards injury of health. And then he writes a pamphlet entitled— Hurry, Worry, and Money—the bane of Modern Education. Dr. Edgar Browne, Surgeon to the Eye and Ear Infirmary, Liverpool, declares that— A large portion of the children who are passing through the educational mill will emerge with definite, marked, and obvious physical injury; one of the most frequent complaints is headache. Healthy children never have headaches. Short-sightedness is the direct result of school-work under existing conditions. Again, Dr. Clifford Allbutt, M.A., F.R.S., says on the conditions under which pupil teachers work— I turn to a blot upon our system which I cannot show too dark. He here refers, not to the teaching of the pupil teachers in the schools, but to the work which they are compelled to prepare for their own examinations. Dr. Rabagliati says, in a letter to The Spectator— I believe that our national system of education is being unduly pressed. There certainly does seem to be a most remarkable consensus of medical opinion in support of Dr. Crichton Browne. We cannot laugh the doctors out of court. If the doctors tell us we are wrong on the lines of health, is it for persons who are not doctors, and know nothing about the laws of health, to say that the doctors are not to be trusted, and that the system which they condemn is to go on unchecked? But I have another class of evidence to bring forward—the evidence of experts, who have nothing whatever to do with the doctors. Mr. Edwin Chadwick, C.B., late Commissioner of Inquiry into the Labour of Young Persons in Factories, Commissioner of Sanitary Inquiry, &c., says that— Compulsory attendance to sedentary work should be limited to three hours; and the other two hours of school attendance should be spent in physical or industrial training. The hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Samuel Smith) would endorse this doctrine, and I know he has a Notice on the Paper to the same effect. Mr. Chadwick goes on to say— From the Reports of Privy Council Inspectors, sufficient evidence may be adduced of the ever continued failure of the system which they are wearily engaged in administering…… There is objection to the method of payment for the partial and inferior results in stages, instead of paying for the whole result—i.e., the outcome. Well, Sir, those are the views of Mr. Chadwick, an old official. I think they constitute one of the strongest condemnations of the present system. Let me now call attention to the statement of Mr. Tait, Inspector of the Huddersfield Board Schools. He says— Over-pressure does exist; and it is a serious evil. Such is the evidence of experts in support of the evidence of Dr. Crichton Browne. I could multiply it indefinitely. And now let me turn to the evidence of the teachers themselves. These are the persons who are brought face to face with the children, who are conducting their daily education. At a meeting on the 24th of March last, at which the Earl of Shaftesbury presided, they unanimously passed the following resolution:— That a serious amount of over-pressure, injurious to the health and education of the people, exists in the public Elementary Schools. Causes:—1. Inelastic conditions of Code. 2. Irregularity of attendance, 3. Excessive demands of Code. 4. Defects of system of Inspection. Again, the National Union of Elementary Teachers declare that— So long as high grants can be obtained by over-pressure, and in many cases in no other way, and so long as human nature remains as it is, managers will demand, and teachers will be compelled to obtain, high grants. The Code proceeds upon the general assumption that all scholars can progress at the same rate, irrespective of capacity or attendance; this is one of the causes of over-pressure. In no country in Europe does the grant depend upon the number of individual passes. In their opinion, the standard is too high for the scholar of moderate ability. Well, Sir, I think we have strong evidence here, taken, first, from medical men, secondly, from experts, and, thirdly, from the teachers themselves, that over-pressure does exist in the Elementary Schools. I should like now to call the attention of the Committee to another class of evidence, which I think is as strong as it possibly can be, because it is evidence which has been procured by the request of the right hon. Gentleman. It is taken from the Registrar General's Report (Statistical Remarks), 1884, pages 14 and 15, and is as follows:— The question referred to this Office by the Educational Department was, whether there was any statistical proof of deterioration of health in children of school age?… Comparing 1861–70 with 1871–80, it would appear that while the mortality of children from all causes has considerably diminished, their mortality from diseases of the nervous system has exceptionally remained stationary. The general improvement has not affected this class of diseases These statistics doubtlessly tend to support the view that the strain of education produces in a certain proportion of children injurious effects upon the brain and nervous system. Considering that this matter was referred to the Registrar General's Department by the Education Department, it is not right that it should not have been alluded to by the right hon. Gentleman.

MR. MUNDELLA

I beg pardon. I stated every word of it last year.

MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON

The Report was only in the hands of the public in March of this year, and now, and not last year, is the time to refer to it. I do not intend to refer individually to all the many cases which have been brought under our notice. I only wish to make this complaint, that when I and others have brought cases of individual over-pressure to the notice of the right hon. Gentleman, he has treated them with official recklessness— I may almost say with official cruelty. I have brought before the right hon. Gentleman cases of suicide, cases of lunacy, cases of death, and cases of ruined health which have been supported by the verdicts of juries, by the opinions of the doctors who attended the patients, by the charges of Coroners to their juries, and by the remarks of school managers; and yet the right hon. Gentleman has in every case declared that the mischief has not been proved to be the result of over-pressure. I dare say that some of those cases might be attributable to other causes. I am sure that all were not. It is by individual cases that we are at last able to arrive at general conclusions. Today I have chosen to appeal to other evidence than that of individual cases; and it must always be remembered, that where one case of death or lunacy occurs, there must be thousands of cases of mental and bodily injury. If all these doctors, teachers, experts— whose evidence I have quoted — are false persons, and are not to be attended to, then there is no case of over-pressure. If they are worthy of belief, then I have abundantly proved the cases which I have brought to the attention of the Committee. I feel that to-day our first business is to prove that injury is going on rather than to remedy it; and I will only touch shortly and generally upon the sort of remedies which ought to be demanded. And here I have to point out that the injury may arise, not alone from the Code itself, but from the way in which it is administered. A bad Code may be so administered that great good may come from it, and a good Code may be so administered that harm may come from it. First, then, I say that there should not be so large a payment for the partial results of individual examination. Secondly, that greater liberty should be allowed the teacher to classify children according to acquirements and abilities. My third suggestion is, that the teacher should have a greater discretion to withhold backward and nervous children from examination. My fourth suggestion is, that overtime, in the shape of home lessons, should not be insisted upon. Then, again, we ought, I think, to have our schools inspected by doctors. Such are some of the methods which I think might be tried. The right hon. Gentleman said something about the age at which children are allowed to leave school—at which they are not allowed to work unless they have passed a certain Standard. I think it is 14. I do not wish to give my own opinion upon such a matter—probably it is not worth anything—but I have had put into my hands to-day a very curious paper, through the agency of one of the police magistrates in London. It bears so remarkably upon this question, that I think the Committee might like me to read it. The magistrate in question says— As regards the children themselves the law often has a most mischievous effect. Boys between 13 and 14 are much less willing to attend school than younger boys, but the law forbids them to work unless they have passed the prescribed Standard, and not unfrequently they form bad associates and learn to steal. At one of the Police Courts lately, a boy between 13 and 14 was charged with stealing boots. The boy's father was in Court, and he said to the magistrate,—'My boy is a very fair scholar, and was earning 10s. a-week, but the School Board won't let him work, and now he is brought here for stealing.' I much fear that with regard to the girls the effects are still more injurious, for at the critical age in question they are, if not employed, exposed to still more temptations than the boys. A female warder at one of the principal prisons in London lately expressed to one of the magistrates a strong opinion on the subject. She said that School Boards and Music Halls together were making numbers of girls prostitutes. ["Name!"] I thought it was well I should read the extract to the Committee; but, of course, I only read it for what it is worth. ["Name!"] Hon. Members who are interested in this question know very well how much importance to attach to what I have read.

MR. MUNDELLA

I think the hon. Gentleman said a London magistrate. Perhaps he will tell us who it is?

MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON

I cannot give his name. I have indicated the source from which a very grave statement emanates, and this statement itself must be taken for what it is worth. Now, Sir Arthur Otway, I wish to turn to a matter which I am very sorry to have to refer to; it is rather personal to the right hon. Gentleman, and to the manner in which he has been carrying on his Department. At the end of last Session I pressed upon the right hon. Gentleman the desirability of obtaining Reports from Inspectors and others, as to the alleged over-pressure in schools, and he promised me publicly in this House that he would get Reports during the winter. This Session I have asked for the production of those Reports, but I have been told they are confidential. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman may excuse the non-production of the Reports on the ground that they are confidential; but I have asked him whether he had in his possession any Reports from Inspectors or others, which confirmed the opinion of Dr. Crichton Browne that over-pressure does exist in Elementary Schools? The right hon. Gentleman, in reply, said— The general Reports which he had would be shortly laid on the Table of the House. They were all in contradiction of Dr. Crichton Browne's conclusions; the conclusion being that over-pressure existed. Anyone who read that answer casually would be led to the conclusion that the right hon. Gentleman had no Reports or information from Inspectors or others in his possession which confirmed the statement of Dr. Crichton Browne; but anyone reading it very closely will find that it can be so construed that it does not answer my question at all, but is only intended to convey an idea that is not founded on fact. Now, I ask the Committee what they would think of anyone in private life who gave an answer which was so arranged as to convey an idea which was not founded on fact? I say they would not again trust the man who gave such an answer. I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he has one code of morality for private life and another code of morality for public life? And I challenge him to get up in his place now and deny that he has information from Inspectors and others which confirms the statement of Dr. Crichton Browne, that over-pressure does exist in Elementary Schools. That is a challenge I hope the right hon. Gentleman will accept.

The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving his Amendment.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £3,360,297, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1885, for Public Education in England and Wales, including Expenses of the Education Office in London."—(Mr. Stanley Leiyhton.)

MR. SYDNEY BUXTON

asked for the indulgence of the Committee while he endeavoured to answer the somewhat excited speech to which they had just listened. He did not think it was necessary for him to endeavour to defend the conduct of his right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council, who was above the insinuations which had been made by the hon. Member. As to the antagonism between the right hon. Gentleman and Dr. Crichton Browne, he (Mr. Sydney Buxton) could only say that he had read Dr. Crichton Browne's Report, and if it was a specimen of the evidence which was to be produced in support of the assertion that over-pressure existed in Elementary Schools, then he could only say the case was even weaker than he had thought it. He wished to add that, in his opinion, his right hon. Friend (Mr. Mundella) was quite justified in not printing Dr. Crichton Browne's Report as a State Paper, though he trusted it would be moved for by some other hon. Member in order that the Committee might see what the evidence was upon which the allegation was founded. He entirely agreed with the hon. Member (Mr. Stanley Leighton) that what they had to do in this matter was to inquire whether over-pressure really existed, and whether the Department had done its best in endeavouring to minimize such strain as might be shown to exist. As far as he could judge, the cry of over-pressure had been vastly exaggerated. Some people seemed to have this over-pressure on the brain, and lived in such a chronic state of indignation that they were unable to inquire into the facts of the cases brought forward. The hon. Member (Mr. Stanley Leighton) pointed to the Medical Profession, whose testimony, he said, went to show that over-pressure did really exist in their schools. With the permission of the Committee, he (Mr. Sydney Buxton) would like, in reference to the part played by the Medical Profession in this matter, to mention certain evidence which had been given, and it was the only evidence he intended to adduce in this debate. The School Board of Bradford, like other School Boards, had appointed a Committee to inquire into the question of over-pressure. A Memorial, from something like 50 medical gentlemen of Bradford, had been presented to the School Board, setting forth that over-pressure existed, more especially in connection with home lessons. The Committee sent a Circular to the doctors, requesting them to specify cases in which they knew over-pressure had existed, and he thought the results of that Circular would somewhat astonish the Committee, especially the hon. Member (Mr. Stanley Leighton), who relied so much in this matter on medical evidence. The result was this—that while a considerable number of doctors did not answer at all, only two cases of overpressure were given. Three doctors declined to give any cases; 13 said they had only "expressed an opinion" on the subject, and 10 that they had no cases to give; and three others distinctly said that no case of over-pressure had come under their notice. The doctors went a little further than that, because the Committee of the Bradford School Board requested them to meet the Committee in order to discuss the matter. What was the result? The doctors were so wedded to their own opinions that, as they said in their letters to the Committee—"They respectfully declined the proposal of a conference as unlikely to suit any useful purpose, or to modify the opinion already expressed in the Memorial." If the action of the doctors of Bradford was a specimen of the action of the Medical Profession generally on this question of overpressure—and what had occurred at Bradford had occurred at Birmingham and Leeds, and other places—the case was not so bad as the hon. Member (Mr. Stanley Leighton) would make out. Nowadays, many persons were disposed to put down every ailment to which a child would be naturally subject, and which exhibited itself during school-time, to over-pressure. As a matter of fact, medical testimony went to show that the general health of the children who had passed or were passing through the schools, had positively improved. At the same time, he entirely sympathized with the hon. Member in his desire that over-strain, where it existed, should, if possible, be diminished. He very much regretted that the authority of a certain number of those who were honestly in favour of the course advocated by the hon. Member was to some extent diminished by the fact that the cry of overpressure was raised by many who considered that the three "R's" should be the Alpha and Omega of the education given in the public schools. No one would deny that there was a certain amount of over-strain in some of the schools. He was afraid that overstrain was in some instances a necessary state of things. They must acknowledge, however, that in any department of life, wherever they drew the line, there must be a certain amount of pressure on the borders; and he was afraid that the only result of lowering the standard of education would be, not that those who were backward or nervous would be benefited, but that the bright and capable child would be deprived of that education to which he was justly entitled. Now, there was, he regretted to say, in connection with elementary education, a great disturbing cause, to which the hon. Member referred, and which the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council also touched upon. He meant not only irregularity of attendance, which he was glad to hear from, the right hon. Gentleman had largely diminished during the past year, but that under-feeding which was a precursor of most of the over-pressure. He had endeavoured to show that the cry of over-pressure was greatly exaggerated. The Department, he was fully persuaded, had done their best, at all events during the past year, to diminish over-pressure as far as it was possible to do, though it was absolutely impossible to get rid of all strain in education. The hon. Member (Mr. Stanley Leighton) mentioned two or three ways in which he, as, he (Mr. Sydney Buxton) presumed, the representative of the teachers, thought that over-strain could be very much diminished. The first way was that the system of payment should no longer be, as it was now, by individual examination, or, in other words, by results. He (Mr. Sydney Buxton) confessed he did not see any other means than payment by results, whereby the real results of a school could be accurately obtained, and he could not see any other means whereby the Committee would be justified in voting the enormous sums which had been already mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council. They must remember that matters were absolutely and entirely different to what they were at the time of the adoption of the so-called Revised Code of 1862. The amount of money voted then was a mere pittance as compared with the sum now voted, and the education given in schools at that time was often the old story of the alphabet at one end and the birch at the other. Matters were entirely different now. They were told that the system of payment by the results of individual examination was very inelastic, and did not adapt itself to the varying needs of the children and of the school; and therefore the hon. Member (Mr. Stanley Leighton) asked that a greater amount of grant should be paid on the average attendance, and that the rest of the grant should be paid upon what might be called sample examinations. He did not know whether the hon. Gentleman was aware that already a very considerable amount of the grant was paid for average attendance. Though, perhaps, it would not be inexpedient somewhat to increase the grant for average attendance, he (Mr. Sydney Buxton) did not believe that anyone would really propose that the greater part of the grant should be paid for that portion of the children's work. It therefore remained that a certain amount must necessarily be paid on, as it were, the assessment of the school. That system was introduced to a certain extent last year by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Mundella) in the shape of a merit grant, a grant which was to be paid, not on individual examination, but on the assessment, so far as value was concerned, of the general work of the school. The result had been that the Teaching Profession, as represented by the Association to which the hon. Member (Mr. Leigh-ton) referred—the National Union of Teachers—had unanimously condemned the mode in which that grant was administered. Was it not certain, therefore, that if they extended the system of merit grant, the teachers who now complained of the principle of individual examination, would complain still more of the individual idiosyncrasies of the Inspectors? There was no doubt the teachers would complain, whatever way the grant was assessed. He thought that if they agreed with the proposal of the hon. Member (Mr. Stanley Leighton), they would soon find the teachers looking back with regret to the good old times when, at all events by individual effort, they were able to secure individual grants by indi- vidual children. And, moreover, he did not see that such a system as was proposed by the hon. Gentleman and by the teachers, would in any way diminish over-pressure, because the competition between the children and between the schools, the competition between the teachers, and the desire of the parents that their children should pass through school as quickly as possible, would still remain. While, therefore, the proposed system would probably be attended by the serious evil that the backward would be neglected, it would in no way diminish over-pressure. The other proposal of the hon. Gentleman was, that it should be left to the discretion of teachers to withhold a certain number of children from examination, and by some persons the number was limited to 10 per cent. It seemed to be too largely forgotten that, after all, the children were not made for the teachers, but the teachers for the children, and that the matter the Committee had to consider was not the easiest way in which the teachers should earn their salaries, but the best way in which the ignorant and backward and neglected children should receive a proper education. Now, what would be the result of adopting the proposal of the hon. Member? Why, the result would be, as they all knew, that the fixed minimum, of withdrawal would become the customary maximum, for the teacher, however the conditions of the school might vary, would think he had a right to withhold from examination 10 per cent of the children, and naturally this 10 per cent would not be the weakest children, not those who now suffered from over-pressure—because they were usually the children who were able to earn the grant—but would consist entirely of the dull and backward and neglected children—just the class of children to whom it was desirable to give the most attention. In his opinion, the right of withdrawal of children from examination ought not to be entrusted to those who had a direct and pecuniary and personal interest in the withdrawal, but it ought to be entrusted to the managers or Inspectors of the school, who, while having an interest in the matter, had not such a direct interest as the teacher. Now, these were the two proposals the hon. Member (Mr. Stanley Leighton) had made, with a view of getting rid of over-pressure; and they were both, in his (Mr. Sydney Buxton's) opinion, quite unreasonable. The hon. Gentleman made another demand, which was reasonable enough, but which—as the hon. Gentleman did not seem to be aware—had already been granted by the Department —that the classification of children should be more according to attainments, and loss according to age. That was exactly the point which had been included— and, he thought, wisely included—in the present Code; and, though it was to be a general rule that children were to be presented as before in succeeding Standards each year, a very considerable amount of discretion was left to the managers and Inspectors to keep children in the same Standard for two years, at all events. Moreover, the Code provided that if a child had failed twice in one subject, or in two subjects, he need not, as a general rule, be presented the following year in a higher Standard; and it gave very considerable discretion to managers to withhold children from examination without giving any specific reason—that was to say, it left the withdrawal from examination almost absolutely in the discretion of managers. It seemed to him that these concessions were very fair and reasonable on the part of the Department, and would go a long way—at least, it was to be hoped so—to diminish the over-pressure in schools. He did not wish to detain the Committee by entering into the smaller matters in which, he believed, the Code also gave relief—such matters as needlework, arithmetic, and geography; but he thought the New Code would in other ways make an appreciable difference. He agreed with the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Stanley Leighton) that it was not time to rest and be thankful, for everything had not been done that might have been done. He believed that the Department might in some way relieve the teachers of a considerable number of red-tape Returns that they were now bound to give, and which not only absorbed their time, but gave them a great deal of worry and anxiety. [Mr. MUNDELLA: We have done so.] The right hon. Gentleman told them they had done so; therefore, it was clear that the Department were rapidly cutting the ground from under the feet of complainants against them. Managers of Voluntary Schools and School Boards in School Board dis- tricts might also well dispense with a certain number of Returns; and they ought most assuredly to make greater use than they did at present of the open spaces in their midst as playgrounds, because children ought to have as much physical exercise as possible. He entirely agreed with the hon. Member (Mr. Stanley Leighton) that home les sons ought, as far as possible, to be cur tailed, and that "keeping in" ought to be absolutely prohibited. He had discussed this question that evening from the point of view of the children more than of the teacher; but he believed that by the adoption of the suggestions he had made, the teachers would benefit equally with the children. There was just this point to be considered—that if the managers of schools would always insist upon paying their teachers by fixed salaries, instead of letting them depend upon the grant, a great deal would be done to diminish the cry of over-pres sure. It would not diminish the real work that was done in the school, be cause the teacher would always have, through his prospective rise of salary and promotion, sufficient interest to do his best; but it would not only relieve him of worry and over-strain, from which at times he necessarily suffered, but it would relieve the children of a considerable amount of over - strain where such existed. There was the pupil teacher question; but he must not detain the Committee in regard to it. He could not, however, refrain from saying that one of the most satisfactory points in his right hon. Friend's (Mr. Mundella's) statement was that the number of pupil teachers was getting smaller by degrees and beautifully less. In conclusion, he had only to say that this matter of over-pressure was really one which concerned administration rather than the Code itself; and though, of course, past Codes had considerably in creased the pressure on the schools, he thought that the Education Department was now doing its best to amend the ways of the past, to give greater elasticity, and to allow managers, Inspectors, and teachers to have a considerable voice—much more than they used to have—in diminishing over-strain wherever it existed.

MR. WALTER

said, he, only rose to offer a few remarks in consequence of an observation made by the hon. Mem- ber for North Shropshire (Mr. Stanley Leighton) reflecting upon a distinguished Predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) who now occupied the position of Head of the Education Department, in reference to a transaction which occurred in the House of Commons about 20 years ago, and in which he (Mr. Walter) played an important part. His hon. Friend (Mr. Stanley Leighton), in charging, as he understood him to do, the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council with being a party to the suppression of material and important facts supplied to him by Inspectors, said that Mr. Lowe, who, at that time—1864—held the Office which was now so worthily filled by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella), was deprived of his seat in consequence of having been guilty of suppressing a Report which was adverse to his own view. It was perfectly true that in the Report of one of the Inspectors—Mr. Jones — a passage was struck out in which the Inspector bestowed great credit upon a particular school in Wales, which, he said, deserved all the more credit for having an uncertificated master. At that time there was a controversy as to whether it was necessary for a school to receive a grant that the master should have a certificate. A Motion was brought forward by the Marquess of Salisbury, who was then a Member of the House of Commons, and seconded by himself (Mr. Walter), reflecting on the conduct of the Department in suppressing the passage of the Report in question. His right hon. Friend (Mr. Lowe), he regretted to say, had not made himself acquainted with the facts of the case; but he, nevertheless, got up in his place and denied the facts alleged. He (Mr. Walter) happened to have in his pocket the original document in which the passage was expunged. He handed it to Mr. Lowe, and the consequence was that there was a majority, he believed of 7, against the Government. Thereupon a Commission was appointed to inquire into the allegations then made, and before the Committee it was proved beyond a doubt that the passage had been, suppressed. He was bound to say that, in his opinion, Mr. Lowe was innocent of the charge made against him. Mr. Lowe explained to him that his eyes had never been of much use to him, and that it was solely in consequence of not being able to read very clearly the document which came into his hands that he was unconscious of the fact that the passage had been expunged. He (Mr. Walter) regretted to say that the matter cost the right hon. Gentleman his seat. Mr. Lowe was in no way a party to the suppression of the passage, and he (Mr. Walter) had felt bound, having heard his hon. Friend's (Mr. Stanley Leighton's) speech, and having been a party to the incident referred to, to state his recollection of the facts which, he believed, would be found on inquiry to be correct.

MR. J. G. HUBBARD

said, it afforded him great satisfaction to know that the money which the Committee voted every year for the purposes of education was well spent. There was but one consideration that mitigated the satisfaction which he felt in assenting to the Votes proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council, and it was the consideration of the real difficulties which managers of Voluntary Schools had constantly to encounter under the present system. He need hardly remind the Committee that until the year 1870 there was no such thing known as a grant for the purpose of education un accompanied by a stipulation that the education given in the schools assisted by the State should be fixed upon a religious basis—that a religious instruction should be connected with any education to which the State was a concurrent party. For reasons which it was not now of any particular utility to discuss, in 1870 the Government determined to qualify the interference of the State in the work of education, so far as to deprive it of any cognizance of the religious element, and to make the subject of religious instruction an absolutely neutral one. But that new policy was accompanied by this assurance—that, valuing most properly the immense utility of the Voluntary Schools then existing, it was not the object of the Government to supersede Voluntary Schools, or in any way to embarrass or disturb them, but simply to supplement them where the powers and opportunities of Voluntary School managers could not reach the large demands of their rising population. In the course of the discussion which accompanied the introduction of the Education Act of 1870, it was explained by the then Vice President of the Council on Education (Mr. W. E. Forster) and by the Prime Minister (Mr. Gladstone), that they could not deny the very great difficulties that Voluntary Schools would have to face in the competition or the rivalry of Board Schools, in as much as Board Schools were not only to share with Voluntary Schools the ordinary Government grant given according to the value of the results achieved, but Board Schools were to be supported to any extent in which that help might be required by rates which were practically unlimited. As the Government and the House in those days came to the conclusion that it would not be practicable for the Voluntary Schools to grapple with their difficulties under such a system, the Government intimated that the Voluntary Schools should receive a larger Government grant than they then received. That promise had been literally fulfilled; the Government grant had quite reached the full measure of any expected increase then held out; but, on the other hand, the advance of the education of the day and the enlarged requirements of the Education Department had been so enormous and so severe, that the additional expense now imposed on Voluntary Schools exceeded its former measure of expense by infinitely more, or at least by quite as much, as the enlarged grant received from Government. Therefore, the Committee would see that, notwithstanding the comforting and reassuring promises as to the mitigation of the difficulties of Voluntary Schools, no mitigation of the difficulties of those schools had taken place. Furthermore, upon the assurance that the Government did not wish to disturb the voluntary movement, but, on the contrary, desired it to increase and flourish, the Voluntary Schools made immense efforts in order to occupy, as far as they could, the ground of education, and they made those efforts with such success that they had absolutely between that time and this doubled their material—they had doubled their accommodation—and they received now a very considerable sum from the Government in virtue of the education which they gave to, he believed, more than 2,000,000 children. Well, that was, so far, quite satisfactory; but this very effort to which he drew the attention of the Committee had brought with it some very severe trials to the promoters of Voluntary Schools. They had enlarged areas and enlarged numbers to deal with; but they had had—he did not say it in any captious spirit—many practical difficulties to encounter by the rivalry, he would not say hostile, but the inevitable rivalry, of the School Boards, who, having an unlimited supply of money, were able to offer good salaries to raise the cost of education generally. School Boards, therefore, could afford to charge low fees; and between low fees and high salaries, in which Voluntary Schools had been obliged, more or loss, to follow suit, Voluntary Schools had experienced very great difficulty in making both ends meet. Practically, they had not been able to make both ends meet; and he was not ashamed, on the part of the Voluntary School managers to say it. In this matter their zeal had outrun their capacity. He received the other day a list of 40 Voluntary Schools in the Metropolis which were in a state of chronic deficiency. The deficiency, however, was not such as to make one despair of the future, but it was quite enough to warrant the sympathy and the assistance of the Committee. The average attendance at the 40 schools was 12,500; the grant received was £8,700, and the deficit £2,345. When the list was put into his hand, he asked himself what was the addition to the Government grant which would put the 40 schools in question into a state of solvency. The calculation was very easily made. It was as nearly as possible one-fourth of the amount of the grant itself, or just about 4s. per head. [An hon. MEMBER: Have they no voluntary contributions?] They had voluntary contributions; but what they amounted to he did not know. He did not know that it affected the question very much; but he would deal with the subject of voluntary subscriptions by-and-bye. Now, if one-fourth of the present Government grant were added to the grant, it would just free these 40 schools from their aggregate deficiency. Some would still be in a state of impecuniosity, others would have a slight surplus; but, on the whole, it would just free them. He entreated the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council and the Committee to relieve these schools from their difficulties, and place them in a position to carry on their excellent and useful work without misgivings as to the future. It was clear that many of them must lapse if they were not assisted. Some hon. Gentleman might think that was a consummation devoutly to be wished; but he did not believe that would be the general sense either of the House or the country. He was persuaded that the House and the country believed that a school was none the worse for being a religious school; that a school was none the worse for being conducted on a system which enabled the teachers to speak to the children not "with bated breath and whispering humbleness," but with full independence of Divine things. More than that, he believed that the existence of religious and Denominational Schools was a practical advantage to the Board Schools. It was the example and influence of religious schools which maintained amongst the Board Schools a very considerable leaven, to say the least, of religious tone and sentiment; but that Board Schools could ever have the same efficacy and success as Denominational Schools in achieving that which he understood to be the main and chief purpose of education, he did not believe. The promoters of Voluntary Schools believed that an education devoid of religion was for all purposes, either of individual happiness or citizenship, almost useless. It made people sharp; it made them clever; but it did not teach them to control their passions; it made them more able, but, perhaps, more dangerous citizens. He therefore thought that the religious element in the Voluntary Schools ought steadfastly to be maintained. He did not for a moment contend that religious teaching was not given in Board Schools. They knew that in some schools everything that could be wished was taught, and taught admirably; but it must be borne in, mind that as the Governing Body of a School Board was elected, there would always be in that body a certain mixture of opinion, and there would always be a jealousy which made parties hate anything in the way of religious teaching which did not conform to their own views. The consequence was that in a large majority of the Board Schools the religious teaching was of a very negative nature. He ventured, therefore, to lay great stress upon the advantage of maintaining in Voluntary Schools that principle of independence in religious teaching which, made their action more beneficial to the children and more useful to the community at large. But the position of these schools was seriously endangered by the want of adequate funds. Was it to be wondered at, seeing that, since 1870, the Voluntary Schools had been doubled in number, or very nearly so. He believed that before 1870 the then Voluntary Schools were valued at £7,000,000, while the Voluntary Schools now in existence were valued at upwards of £13,000,000. That sum had been voluntarily subscribed by the religious people of the country, who wished to promote the education of those who, by the action of the State, were forced into schools; because it must not be forgotten that the one very important feature of the Education Act of 1870 was to make education a necessity. That Act forced children into schools, imposed penalties on employers who employed children who had not passed a certain Standard, and imposed penalties on parents who did not send their children to school. In fact, the Act amounted to a system of coercion; and in this country, if a system was enforced by coercion, it could only be justified upon one plea, and that was that the work in hand was a national necessity. Now, had the nation as a nation taken its share of the cost of creating and maintaining those schools which were called Voluntary? Clearly not. Let them compare for one moment that which the nation had done with most lavish liberality in the way of extending and maintaining Board Schools, with that they had done towards the support of Voluntary Schools. At the present moment, the rates which were levied every year not only to maintain the Board Schools, but to pay the interest of loans obtained in respect of Board Schools, amounted to £1,800,000. Now, who paid that £1,800,000? It was not paid by those who were unconcerned in Voluntary Schools. On the contrary he held, and it was open to any hon. Gentleman to contradict him if he was in a position to do so, that of that £1,800,000, two-thirds, perhaps three-fourths, was paid by persons who were also interested in supporting and promoting Voluntary Schools. He asked the Committee if that was not an enormous burden to place upon those people, because, at the same time, they were paying every year £700,000 in voluntary subscriptions? An hon. Member asked, a while ago, what was the amount of subscriptions to 80 schools to which he had specially referred. He did not know; but the contributions to Voluntary Schools in the country generally amounted, as he said, to £700,000 a-year. Was it to be wondered at that, when such heavy burdens were placed upon their supporters, so many of the Voluntary Schools should be in difficulties? The difficulties did not arise because the zeal or devotion to the cause of religious education was at all flagging on the part of those who had promoted Voluntary Schools, but it was because they were called upon from day to day to meet still heavier demands to pay the expenses of the School Boards. He received a demand only yesterday morning—he had not met it yet—for the Metropolitan rates. He looked at it to see what was the charge for the School Board, and to his horror he found it amounted to 8d. in the pound—8d. in the pound was now the charge for the School Board which they were told some years ago was never to be more than 3d. in the pound! When the Education Act was passed, the then Vice President of the Council (Mr. W. E. Forster) and the Prime Minister (Mr. Gladstone) comforted the desponding men who were thinking that the School Board charges were to overwhelm them, by telling them that 3d. in the pound would be as much as they would ever have to pay. He did not mean to say that the right hon. Gentleman gave a pledge on the matter; if it had been a pledge, it would have become a matter of law, and he (Mr. Hubbard) and others would not now be here as suppliants, but as men demanding to be relieved from the burdensome tax which the School Board charges now amounted to. They believed the representations which were made to them by the Prime Minister. They attached to the word of the Prime Minister as much value as they would to an Act of Parliament, and when he told them the School Board rate would not exceed 3d. in the pound, they believed him. It might have been credulous on their part, but still it was very proper credulity from one Englishman towards another. As a matter of fact, the supporters of Voluntary Schools found themselves saddled with a large proportion of the rates levied for School Boards; they found themselves bound to provide £700,000 a-year by way of subscriptions, and if they did not provide those funds, then their schools were liable to lapse. That was a position which was very cruel to those who were supporting Voluntary Schools; and what he proposed was a very simple but, nevertheless, a very effectual remedy. He proposed that 4s. per head, or one-fourth of the existing Government grant, be added to all schools—not all Voluntary Schools, but all schools. It was not only that he wanted to relieve and save the existence of the schools which depended so largely upon private liberality, but he wanted also to throw upon the wealth of the country that which Parliament had chosen to make a national duty. How were they to reach the wealth of the country except by a general tax? They did not do it by rates. Rates were heavy upon those who had to pay them; but on what a small proportion of the wealth of the country were the rates levied. Had the Committee ever thought of the difference in the amount which 1d. in the pound on the parochial assessment, and 1d. Income Tax would produce? A penny in the pound upon the assessment for the School Board rate produced as nearly as he could judge £325,000, while 1d. Income Tax produced £2,000,000, or, in other words, six times the amount of wealth was taxed through the Income Tax than through the rates. He therefore asked the Committee to equalize the burden of this great national obligation, and to do it by spreading it more largely over the Imperial finances of the country. If they did that, they would have the comfort of relieving very many struggling schools in large towns. What were the objections to the relief he suggested? He did not know of any. The other day he had the honour of accompanying a deputation to Lord Carlingford and the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council, to whom they presented a humble Petition. The right hon. Gentleman received them very graciously; but Lord Carlingford answered them by reading part of the Prime Minister's letter to the National Society, published some months ago, and requiring further information, which was subsequently furnished, and met all objections. He did not think that was to be met by the Lord President of the Council on Education. They wanted to have heard something of what Lord Carlingford himself thought about the questions they raised, not what he considered the Dictator of the day had laid down. He (Mr. Hubbard) now appealed from the Prime Minister and from the Lord President of the Council on Education to the House of Commons, which was superior to both of them. He appealed upon the plea of justice and expediency. It could not be to the advantage of the country that the Voluntary Schools should lapse; it could not be to the advantage of the country that they should not be maintained efficiently. He might be asked— "Where is your evidence that these schools will fail for want of funds; the accounts have been sent in, and we find them balanced?" Yes, balanced they were; but how was not shown. There were such things as delayed payments, and loans from bankers and from friends, which were sometimes resorted to in order to surmount a difficulty. The supporters of Voluntary Schools had confidence in the system they maintained, and they urged the Committee to give them that assistance which would cheer and encourage the many excellent persons whose interests were really in their hands. Supporters of Voluntunary Schools were refused relief sometimes upon the plea that to help them would be equivalent to an application of Public Revenue for denominational purposes. He absolutely denied that would be the case. What did the country pay for each child educated in the Board Schools? Last year it paid £2 13s. 8d. What did the country pay for each child educated in the Voluntary Schools?—16s. 5d. He averred that the country paid three times as much for a child in a School Board School as was paid for a child in a Voluntary School. In a Voluntary School quite as good a secular education could be obtained, and there was added that religious instruction which tended to make happier men and better and more capable citizens. The amount was 16s. 5d.

MR. MUNDELLA

said, the £2 13s. 8d. included the cost of buildings which were the property of the country.

MR. J. G. HUBBARD

said, that was perfectly true. He had carefully calcu- the cost of the palatial buildings in which the gutter children were educated. Whether for the fabrics, or the maintenance of the Board Schools, he believed his estimates and comparison to be correct, and he defied any hon. Members to justify a system under which the country paid in rates and taxes a sum amounting to £2 13s. 8d. for the education of every child in Board Schools, while the cost was only 16s. 5d. per head for every child equally, or even better, instructed who was passed through the Voluntary Schools, equally serviceable in every way, and with the additional advantage of having learnt his duty to God and man. He thanked the Committee for the patience with which they had heard him give these explanations in regard to a matter upon which he felt very deeply, because it had been one of the objects of his later life to endeavour to secure that religious education should be put upon a solid basis. In fighting this battle he was not fighting the battle of the Church of England only, but of every Religious Body from the Wesleyans to the Roman Catholics, who had each an interest in maintaining their own right to provide their own religious teaching in their own schools, just as they maintained their right to deal with such matters in their own churches and chapels.

MR. W. H. JAMES

said, the debate had taken a sudden turn in reference to over-pressure on the brain and overpressure on the purse; but he had no desire to follow the right hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the Committee in that sense. He entirely concurred in the sentiment which had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council in moving the Estimate, when he stated that the cost of education in the country had increased, was increasing, and ought not to be diminished. He should be sorry, however, to find that the great cost which now fell upon the country in connection with education should take the line advocated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard), and should become merely a question of controversy as between Voluntary and Board Schools. The tendency of these discussions had always been to drift into matters of religion; and he thought it was a matter of congratulation that they heard so very little at this moment of controversy of that kind. The point he wished to lay before his right hon. Friend the Vice President was the enormous pressure and strain in matters connected with the cost of education in what he might term the poor and populous districts of the country. That cost had increased, and would probably continue to increase. It was due entirely to the enormous growth and increase of population, and it pressed particularly upon the constituency he had the honour to represent (Gates-head). The population of the county of Durham, in the decennial period, had increased by no less than 26 per cent; and, if the Committee would bear with him for a few moments, he would give thorn a few remarkable facts with regard to the constituency he represented. The constituency of Gates-head had doubled within the last 20 years. In 1861 the population was 30,000; and in 1881 it had increased to 65,873. The greater portion of the children attending Elementary Schools were educated at Board Schools; and whereas in the country the percentage of the population attending Board Schools was 25 per cent, in the borough he had the honour to represent it was as high as 70 per cent, and the population consisted almost entirely of the industrious classes. In some of the Wiltshire towns they might deduct as much as one-seventh or one-sixth for children who attended other classes of Voluntary Schools; but, he believed, in his constituency an allowance of one-sixteenth would be much nearer the fact. The increase of the population was not confined merely to the county of Durham; but in Northumberland the increase had been 12 per cent in the last decennial period; in Yorkshire, 18 per cent; in Nottinghamshire, 22 per cent; and in Leicestershire, 19 per cent; and the increase in the expenditure was felt more especially in those large and populous urban districts in which the Education Acts of 1870 and 1876 had had the beneficial effects to which his right hon. Friend had referred. In those very poor and populous places, it had been over and over again admitted that they had a considerable claim for special assistance in carrying out the policy to which both Parties in the State were more or less committed. He might refer to the debate which took place in 1876, at the time of the introduction of the Education Act by the noble Viscount who was a Predecessor of his right hon. Friend. These were the words of Viscount Sandon, now the Earl of Harrowby, on that occasion— The poorer districts have the least aid given to them. In places like Bethnal Green, where they cannot ask for large foes, and where they cannot get subscriptions, there—however -well the children may do—and, happily, in Bethnal Green, as also among the agricultural districts, many children do very well—still, owing to their poverty, the Government grant is cut down. This is a matter that does not affect voluntary more than hoard schools. The question is one of simple justice, and our endeavour should be to remove so obvious and grievous an injustice. We have tried to find a test which should enable us to decide what is a poor district, and we have looked round to see if we had any precedent to go upon: on considering the Act of 1870, we found there that the definition, of a poor district was where a 3d. rate on the property produced less than 7s. 6d. per child, and that in this case an extra Parliamentary grant was made to board, but not to voluntary schools. Again, on referring to the Scotch Act of 1872, we found that where the rate produced loss than 7s. 6d. per child, an Imperial grant was made. Looking further into the Scotch Act we found that relief is given to voluntary as well as to board schools in every poor county—such as Inverness, Argyll, Ross, Orkney, and Shetland. We had found, therefore, in those Acts something to guide us as to what had hitherto been considered to be a poor district. We propose, then, to take a somewhat similar standard of the poverty of a district, but we do not intend to go so far as the Scotch Act. We propose that the Parliamentary grant in poor districts shall not be reduced unless it is twice as large as the income produced from local effort. I will endeavour to show the House how this would work. In an ordinary district the State gives £1 to meet £1 from the locality. In poor districts, by this proposal, £1 would te given to meet 10s. If a school's maintenance is £120 now, we give £60 grant to meet £60 fees, rates, or subscriptions; but in poor districts for £40 of fees, rates, and subscriptions we should hereafter grant £80. As to the poor districts, how does the Bill propose to mark them out f We propose to take London generally by Unions, la towns above 5,000 population we should take ward divisions, or areas with separate rates, or special divisions suggested by the municipal authorities approved by the Local Government Board and the Education Department. Smaller boroughs would be dealt with as Unions, and the parishes would be the units of the whole country. This is the proposal which the Government has to make on this difficult and important question. We felt bound to try to meet a great injustice."— (3 Hansard, [231], See Appendix.) That proposal of the noble Viscount, in the discussion which took place in Committee on the Bill, was subsequently withdrawn, and another was substituted, somewhat in the direction of the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard), that special assistance should be given to Voluntary and Church Schools. That proposition also was not accepted, and a new clause moved by his hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell) relating to the dissolution of Board Schools was carried. He had made these observations with a view of pointing out the strong claims which had been put forward in that House at different times in favour of poor and populous places in the matter of assistance to their schools. But the difficulty which existed in connection with the education rate was mainly in connection with the repayment of loans for buildings and advances made in connection with the building of schools. The history of this matter was a little remarkable, and he wished particularly to call the attention of his right hon. Friend the Vice President to it. It would be remembered that in 1879 the then Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Northcote) took alarm at the enormous indebtedness which in particular places then existed, and he brought in a measure—the Public Works Loan Bill—which proposed to restrict the terms of interest, and to give special powers to the Public Works Loan Commissioners for restricting the power of borrowing money proposed from time to time to be exercised by Local Bodies, and especially those which related to School Board Authorities. Hon. Members would remember quite well the enormous amount of opposition which this proposal raised in the House. He did not think it was his right hon. Friend, but some Members of the Government, in opposing that proposal, sat up the whole night. He was sorry the Secretary to the Treasury was not in his place, because, although the Secretary to the Treasury did not take an active part in opposing the Bill, he seemed to have some sort of arriére pensée in his mind in favour of the proposal, because he suggested that the whole matter, before they proceeded further with it, should be sifted by a Select Committee. Now, the pressure upon the large towns for the repayment of these loans and interest was still very great, although the opponents of the proposal succeeded in obtaining some modification from the House. The Public Works Loan Commissioners in 1879 laid down this stern principle— that wherever it was possible the payment of a loan should be by annual instalment, instead of by the payment by interest, and that the rate of interest should be raised ¼by per cent. The burdens which, consequently, pressed upon certain localities had become almost intolerable. He would take the case of his own constituency as an illustration. He might, in the first place, point out that the total average rate for education throughout the country was 5d, whereas in his own constituency it was 1s., although the possibility of an 8d. rate appeared to have alarmed the right hon. Gentleman. A rate of 1s. 5d. on the rateable value of most districts in the country was sufficient to meet the repayment of loans and interest; but a rate of 5½d. was required to meet similar charges incurred by his own School Board. He had received communications on this subject from different School Boards in the country, and from individual members of the School Boards, including Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Ipswich, Middlesbrough, Newark, Durham, and other places; and he asked his right hon. Friend whether, having taken public action with regard to the Public Works Loan Bill, he would not at the present moment be disposed to use his influence in giving some relief to the localities in the direction in which they asked for aid? There was only one other proposal he would venture to make, although he did not know whether it would be practicable. Under the 17th clause of the Act of 1870, the interest to be paid on the repayment of these loans was fixed at 3½ per cent, and it had now been raised to 4½ per cent in the course of 14 years, which rendered it a matter of considerable hardship, and in many localities it was almost thought that Parliament had been guilty of a breach of faith. He would also suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the propriety of amending Clause 7 of the Act of 1870. As it now stood, it provided that where a 3d. rate did not produce 7s. 6d. for every child in average attendance, that school was entitled to some special aid. What he would suggest was, that 10s. 6d. should be substituted for 7s. 6d., which would give some real and substantial assistance to these poor and populous dis- tricts—places which had so strong a claim for some further aid from the Imperial funds. He hoped his right hon. Friend would not look at this as purely a monetary and financial question; and he further hoped that he would not simply refer the matter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and would not say that it was a question upon which he had to look to that right hon. Gentleman for an answer. In reality it was a question of policy. [Mr. WARTON: Hear, hear!] The hon. and learned Member for Bridport cheered him, but he sincerely hoped that he had not said anything very foolish. He must, however, repeat the remark that he considered this to be a Question of policy; and if they were anxious to keep at a distance this cry for economy in education, and to prevent it from taking effect—although it was all very well to come down to the House to make splendid speeches, and to ask hon. Members to road voluminous Reports; and, although it was all very well to have satisfactory Reports from the Inspectors, and to hear from his right hon. Friend the progress which had been made—at the same time, it was absolutely necessary that they should look a-head. If the population of the country was increasing, and there was a clamour for further assistance in regard to public education—not in the shape of further control and centralization, because he did not think there was any desire for that in the country—the tendency would be to play more and more into the hands of those who were known as the Economical Party; and ultimately it would merely become a pecuniary question, which most hon. Members in that House were of opinion was most undesirable.

LORD ALGERNON PERCY

said, he thought the Committee were labouring under great disadvantage in discussing the Vote without having received full information with regard to it, and especially the Report of Dr. Crichton Browne. It did appear to him that Dr. Crichton Browne had been hardly treated; and he found from a letter which Dr. Crichton Browne had written to The Times the other day that he concurred in that opinion. He said, in his letter, that there was the stongest evidence of the existence of over-pressure in Elementary Schools, and he complained that the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council had dealt with the Report in disparaging terms, and yet had refused to publish it. The right hon. Gentleman said that he had quoted the Reports of the Registrar General in reply to the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Stanley Leighton) last year; but he (Lord Algernon Percy) thought the right hon. Gentleman was labouring under a mistake, because those Reports, although they referred to the year 1882, were only delivered in the month of May of this year. Therefore, he did not understand how the right hon. Gentleman could have quoted them last year.

MR. MUNDELLA

said, the noble Lord was perfectly correct. He had not quoted the Blue Book last year; but he had quoted the answers which had been sent to him.

LORD ALGERNON PERCY

said, the answer of the Registrar General had been read, and he would not trouble the Committee by reading it again; but nowhere did it appear in Hansard that the right hon. Gentleman had quoted these Reports. Perhaps it was a mistake, and the right hon. Gentleman had quoted them. He thought it was a matter for regret that the right hon. Gentleman should have met the question of overpressure in the way he had done. No doubt there was a great and general feeling that over-pressure did exist; that feeling was held both by the parents and teachers and by medical men; and it was not to be met and answered by ignoring it altogether, or by treating it with contempt, or by the mere assertion of the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Sydney Buxton) that it was exaggerated. It was a very serious matter indeed, and should be carefully inquired into. The hon. Member for North Shropshire had alluded to certain cases. Now, he (Lord Algernon Percy) had brought certain cases under the notice of the right hon. Gentleman, and he had heard the right hon. Gentleman say that not a single case had been proved. That, of course, was quite true; but he would call the attention of the Committee to this fact—that cases of over-pressure were extremely difficult to prove. It was almost impossible to prove that a particular case of sickness arose from any particular thing. Medical men might be quite certain that illness did arise in a particular case from the over-study a child had gone through, and yet be utterly unable to prove that it was the cause of illness. There were many representations from medical men in which they said they could not absolutely state that over-pressure arose in any particular case; but, nevertheless, they had no doubt in their own minds that over-pressure really did exist. The hon. Member for Peterborough allowed this; but he complained that at Bradford certain medical men could not assert that over-pressure arose from any individual cause which had been brought under their notice. Still, that would be accounted for by what he (Lord Algernon Percy) had just stated. There was another matter which he desired to mention. When an hon. Member rose in that House and brought forward a case of over-pressure, the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council referred the case to the School Board, or to the managers of the school where the case was alleged to have arisen. He could not see that the right hon. Gentleman could take any other course; but it must be recollected that it was to the interest of the managers of the school and to the School Board to prove that no over-pressure did exist, because if it was proved the right hon. Gentleman would find fault with them, and would be perfectly justified in doing so. The right hon. Gentleman said that if the school attendance were properly looked after the average attendance would be higher than it was, and would, to a great extent, remedy this over-pressure. There was no doubt that it would remedy one of the causes of over-pressure to a certain extent, but it would not remove the evil entirely; because if they took children from all sorts of positions in life, with all sorts of home surroundings, forced them into school and pressed them forward at the same rate, totally regardless of their mental, physical, and social capacity, they must, in many cases, have over-pressure. That was exactly what was going on at the present moment, and there were many points in which the condition of life under which a child obtained his living came into play in regard to this question. The hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire (Dr. Farquharson) had read an interesting letter at the Aberdeen Congress of the Education Institute of Scotland in January, 1883, in which attention was called to cases where the social position of the child came into play very much. The hon. Member said, speaking with regard to children of wealthy parents— The change (from home to school) bears less hardly upon the child of wealthy parents; but the poorer lad, when taken away from the fascinations of idleness and put in intellectual harness, brings to his task a mind utterly devoid of the most elementary training, save the sharpness acquired by early contact with the world. Therefore, even in elementary education, the child of poor parents commenced under different circumstances from the child of wealthier parents. The case had been differently put by the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Sydney Buxton), who asked whether, in these cases of over-pressure, the children had not been badly fed? No doubt such children would suffer more from overpressure than children who were well fed. Unfortunately, there were many children in Board Schools who did not receive sufficient and proper food; but these were the very children with whom they had to deal. What the State did was this—it forced parents to send their children to school whether they liked it or not. It forced those children to go through an education which in many cases was higher than that which hon. Members gave their own children at the same age. But that was not all. If hon. Members sent their children to school they could withdraw them whenever they found that the education which they were receiving was doing them harm physically; but a person who was bound to send a child to an elementary school could not withdraw that child unless in a case of serious illness. If the State took upon themselves to act in the position of parent in the matter of education, it was bound to take into consideration all the causes of over-pressure, including social condition and all those home matters which affected the child. Mr. H. B. Hewitson, Ophthalmic and Aural Surgeon to the Leeds Infirmary, said, in a Report to that Institution— I am led to believe, though it is difficult to prove, that although the general conditions of the actual schools themselves are as good as one would desire, yet the bad light in which children prepare their night lessons at home, especially among the poorer classes, contributes markedly to the production of defective sight. It was no answer to their complaint to say that over-pressure arose from the inconsiderate use of the provisions of the Code, because as long as human nature was what it was, if a teacher was considered worth more if he could pass 95 per cent of the children through a particular Standard than if he could only pass 90 per cent, it would be to the interest of that teacher to press the children forward as much as possible, and the fact of over-pressure would still remain, however much might have been done to remove it in other ways. There was one remedy for the present state of things which he thought might be attempted, and that was an improvement in regard to classification. The hon. Member for Peterborough said that an improvement had been made in that respect; but he (Lord Algernon Percy) was informed that the improvement was more apparent than real, because the only difference was in the insertion of the words— Unless there is a reasonable excuse for treating him exceptionally. That reasonable excuse in a proved case would be given to the Inspector, and no fair Inspector would ever have objected to a child being withdrawn for a reasonable excuse; but, of course, the payment by results was really at the foundation of the whole of the present state of things, and when the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council quoted Germany and other countries of Europe, he should bear in mind the fact that in those countries payment by results did not exist. He ought also to have mentioned the fact that medical men in those countries, or many of them, were reporting against the system of education in those countries, and saying that it was producing bad results. In Germany notably, although it was one of the countries quoted by the right hon. Gentleman, he found that Dr. Treichler called attention to the increase of habitual headaches among boys and girls in that country; and although an hon. Gentleman laughed two or three days ago at the idea of headaches being considered a serious evil, it would be found that eminent medical men declared that no child could suffer from habitual headache without suffering seriously in after life. If the teachers could not be trusted to classify the pupils and to bring their schools to perfection without payment by results, he thought it only showed that the teachers were not fit to be entrusted with the care of children at all, and he failed to see what there was to justify the right hon. Gentleman in the position he had taken up. He agreed with the hon. Member for Peterborough that the teachers should have fixed salaries, as far as possible, believing that competition between school and school would be sufficient to induce the teachers to endeavour to bring up their school to perfection. He was certain that this agitation in regard to overpressure would not cease as long as it was ignored, as it had been that night in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and as long as it was treated with contempt as being exaggerated. There was one remark of the right hon. Gentleman with which he could not agree at all, and that was that the children left school too early—namely, at the age of 10 years! That was said to be too tender an age for a child to begin agricultural labour. Perhaps it was to do some agricultural labour; but there were many things a child could do at that age to enable it to bring something home to help to keep the family. Hon. Gentlemen would find that over-pressure did not exist so much in agricultural districts as in the town districts, where children stayed to pass through Standard V. Children could pass in Standard IV. without injury; but over-pressure commenced when passing on to Standard V., as the step from the 4th Standard to the 5th was a very trying one. He wished to call attention to one other matter—namely, the difficulty that arose in schools from the conduct of some of the Inspectors; the different manner in which different Inspectors dealt with the same schools. An instance had been brought under his notice—the case of a Voluntary School, which he knew very well in the West of England, where in the first year and third year the same Inspector came, and on both occasions gave a very high Report indeed; but where, in the intermediate year, an Assistant Inspector came, and reported the school so bad that the grant had been diminished, or nearly taken away altogether. He had seen a letter from the mistress of the school, and she declared that the manner of the Assistant Inspector had been so rough and so different from what had been expected, and from what the children had been used to, that they could not answer the questions put to them.

MR. MUNDELLA

Did not the school authorities appeal to the Department, or make any representation?

LORD ALGERNON PERCY

said, he was glad the right hon. Gentleman had asked that question, because that was one of the things to which he wished to call his attention. It was perfectly true that the schools were always told that in the event of Inspectors exceeding their duty they should apply to the Department; but school managers hesitated to do that, because they knew that the pecuniary results in after years were in the hands of the same Inspectors. What was true of the managers might be more emphatically stated of the teachers. They would rather bear the evil in an aggravated form than be placed in conflict with the Inspectors and have bad Reports. These statements he merely repeated from a letter written in 1883 by the Secretary to the National Association of Elementary Teachers.

MR. ILLINGWORTH

said, the discussion upon the Education Estimates had run upon two lines—in the first place, upon over-pressure in Elementary Schools, and in connection with this reference had been made to the town he had the honour to represent (Bradford). He must say with some knowledge of the statements made on both sides—the statements of the medical men of Bradford, and the counter-statements made that evening—that the case presented by these medical gentlemen was far from proved. His object in rising, however, was rather to deal with the other question raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City (Mr. Hubbard), The right hon. Gentleman complained that what were called Voluntary Schools found themselves at the present moment seriously embarrassed, and declared that an additional grant of 4s. per child would make their position more satisfactory. He wanted this grant to enable the miscalled "voluntary system" to hold its own against the competition of the School Board system throughout the country. He (Mr. Illingworth) apprehended that if this 4s. per head were forthcoming, the amount of the voluntary subscriptions would be found to "grow smaller by degrees and beautifully less," and the country would find, looking at the number of children in the Denominational Schools—these schools being maintained mainly by the Government grant and the pence of the parents—that it was handing over the main portion of its national education to a wholly irresponsible body. What were really the facts? The private contributions and all the Voluntary Schools in 1883 amounted to about £715,000. The receipts from pence amounted to £1,200,000, which, with the £1,620,000, made a total of £2,820,000, or four times the amount of the voluntary contribution. The great majority of the people of the country would, he thought, be inclined to say that one-fifth was a very small proportion for the managers of these so-called Voluntary Schools to contribute, if they were to keep in their own hands the absolute management of half the educational system of this country which was so largely paid for out of national resources.

THE CHAIRMAN

I am unwilling to interrupt the hon. Member; but he is departing from the Rules which regulate these discussions. The Amendment before us must be disposed of before we can go into the general subject of the Estimates. There is a specific Amendment before the Committee; but the hon. Member is going into another branch of the subject. The Amendment is to reduce the Vote on account of overpressure.

MR. ILLINGWORTH

said, he had been traversing a statement made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City, and he was afraid hon. Members had been in the habit of enjoying considerable licence in these educational discussions. Further than that, he was also afraid the questions involved were so intermixed that it was almost impossible to separate them. It was almost exclusively those who were so conspicuous in their zeal for the maintenance of Voluntary Schools who advanced these charges of over-straining and over-pressure in their National Schools. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that their burden should be mitigated by this extra grant of 4s. per head, to be paid altogether out of the Consolidated Fund, and had pointed out that 1d. in the pound on rateable property only produced some£230,000a-year, whereas 1d. on the Income Tax produced over £2,000,000 a-year. But the right hon. Gentleman did not suggest that the burden should be placed on the Income Tax only. If the money came from the Consolidated Fund it came from the masses of the working classes of the country, who contributed so large a share —as was well known to everyone in the House — to the Excise and Customs Duties; therefore the proposal was not, in reality, to relieve the ratepayers of the country, but it was to throw the burden on the poorer classes, who were now, in many eases, heavily taxed by the mere payment of school pence. He found that in spite of the cost per child in the Church of England Schools less was being earned per head than in the Board Schools. It was urged, however, that the State received an immense advantage from the religious teaching that was given in the schools, and that there ought to be great indulgence shown towards the religious convictions of the parents of the country. He concurred in that; but there was a great difference between the manner in which Roman Catholic and Wesleyan Schools and Church of England Schools were kept and maintained. In their large towns, where there were Roman Catholic and Wesleyan Schools, the Roman Catholic and Wesleyan children were singled out and sent to them; but in the agricultural districts, such was the territorial position of those connected with Church of England Schools, that there was no option for parents whatever. Even though a large proportion of them might be Dissenters, they were obliged to send their children to Church of England Schools. There was no extreme tenderness exhibited by the managers for the religious scruples of the parents of the children. There was offered to the children either a Catechism, to many parts of which the parents took exception, or a thoroughly secular system of education. Take the agricultural districts of Wales, where the landlords maintained Church of England Schools—

THE CHAIRMAN

I must again call the attention of the hon. Member to the Rules of Debate in Committee. A new question has been raised by an Amendment to reduce the Vote; and it is necessary, for the convenience of the Committee, that that should be disposed of before the discussion on the general question is resumed. It is my duty, according to the Rules, to require that the Amendment should be disposed of before any general discussion goes on.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

On the point of Order, I should like to know whether, in discussing the Amendment, it is competent to allude to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council? In discussing the Amendment are we absolutely precluded from discussing the speech of the right hon. Gentleman?

THE CHAIRMAN

The matter seems to me very plain. It is competent to refer to the speech so far as it would apply to the Amendment.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

If this question is disposed of now, it will not be competent to speak on over-pressure again. ["Yes, yes!"] Then it is competent to speak on the question later on?

THE CHAIRMAN

It is well, I think, that I should read the Rule of which I have spoken. It is this— When a Motion is made in Committee of Supply to omit or reduce any item of the Vote, the Question shall be proposed from the Chair for omitting or reducing the item only, and Members shall speak on such Question only until such Question has been disposed of. It is, therefore, clear what I am to do.

MR. TOMLINSON

On the point of Order. The Vote has nothing, necessarily, to do with the question of overpressure. Is it possible to discuss that question on the question of the salaries paid to the Inspectors?

MR. MUNDELLA

I think it would be more convenient, in order that the whole question should be discussed, that we should have this question of the reduction of the Vote either withdrawn or negatived.

MR. SALT

said, he would, in the absence of the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Stanley Leighton), undertake the responsibility of withdrawing the Amendment. He was afraid, however, that it would not be possible to withdraw it. If not, they could negative it.

Question put, and negatived.

Original Question again proposed.

MR. ILLINGWORTH

said, when interrupted, he had been venturing to draw a comparison between the manner in which Roman Catholic and Wesleyan Schools and Church of England Schools were kept and maintained, and that such was the territorial power and exclusiveness of the Church of England party, that although the Education Act provided that when the question of school accommodation was considered that accommodation must be "efficient, sufficient, and suitable," two of these qualifications were very often ignored, especially the last one. What could suitability mean, except that children of Nonconformist parents should not be forced into Church of England Schools? For very often they were now the only schools in the parish or locality. They had offered to them either the teaching of the Church of England as such, or secular teaching. He knew there had been a doubt as to whether "suitable" had reference to the religious feelings of the parents of the children. He was glad to find his right hon. Colleague (Mr. W. E. Forster), who had charge of the Bill in 1870, in his place. In that measure there was an Interpretation Clause, throwing light on these three words— "efficient," "sufficient," and "suitable." The Interpretation Clause directly pointed to the security that was intended by the Act for the religious scruples and preferences of the parents. He knew that the Interpretation Clause was dropped from the Bill; and it was owing in a great measure to a mistake, and not from any desire on the part of his right hon. Friend. He (Mr. Illingworth) still urged that full justice was not done to the parents of a great many children in many parts of the country where the only school available for them was that of the Church of England, in spite of the fact that a large majority of the children were Nonconformists. He contended that a little moderation was necessary on the part of those who urged the great value of teaching as it was given in the Church of England Schools. They must bear in mind that four-fifths of the money for the maintenance of these Voluntary Schools came from school rates and from the national purse. The Church of England had grasped as much of the country as it could immediately after the passing of the Act of 1870. Over 3,000 applications for new schools or extensions were made during the six months that it was left open by those who wished to extend denominational education. He was aware that the extension was carried out much less than might be supposed from the number of applications, and he did not hesitate to say that in many districts considerable embarrassment had come upon the managers of Voluntary Schools from the indiscreet action taken by them in their efforts to exclude a really national system of education. He ventured to think that there was great exaggeration in regard to the intrinsic value of the religious teaching in Elementary Schools. Before 1870 they were aware that there was no such thing as Government assistance given to any schools where there was no religious teaching. Looking at the results broadly, though he did not wish to under-value the zeal and good intention of those connected with the Voluntary Schools, yet he ventured to say that the results did not justify the encomiums passed upon religious education given in the schools. He did not for one moment say that he was less interested in religious instruction than the most zealous partizan of their so-called Voluntary Schools. In this country—in fact, it was admitted by the statement of the right hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard)—in the national system, where, on the management of schools, they had individuals of every religious denomination, and theological antagonism so active in their midst, and where they might have in the parish those who did not belong to any religious denominations, but were as true friends of public education as the best, it became very important to have separate religious instruction. If he was asked, then, whether the national educational system in this country was to drift into what was called secular teaching, he should answer — "Yes; so far as the responsibility of the State was concerned." His right hon. Friend would tell him that, at the present moment, the State was not responsible for religious teaching. Already it had freed itself from any such duty, and he only desired that ordinary subjects should be taught in their National Schools, and that religious teaching should be given otherwise. The Vice President of the Council had presided at a meeting in connection with the Sunday School Union the other day he believed. The right hon. Gentleman had done no more than justice to that great Agency in this country, which he believed was of infinitely higher value in connection with religious instruction and influence upon the minds of the rising generation than any mere routine teaching given either through the Catechism, or orally in the ordinary manner. Now, it was a fact, and a very edifying fact for most Members in the House, that they had in the Sunday Schools of the United Kingdom between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 children, who were taught by over 600,000 teachers. What was the character of the teaching staff? Security was taken in the selection of persons who were teachers in the Sunday Schools that they should have the religious welfare of the children at heart; but could the same security be given in regard to their Day Schools? Why, it was urged in some quarters, during the discussion which took place in 1870 and subsequently, that there ought to be some tests and safeguards to insure that the teacher himself was a religious person, and therefore, for that reason, qualified to give this instruction. The idea of the religious test was ridiculed from almost every quarter of the House. For his own part, he welcomed the change which was gradually coming over the country. The Board School system was by degrees absorbing all the feeble schools in their towns. In the administration of his Department the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council was bound, he thought, to give every facility, when called upon, for the starting of School Boards in place of the feeble Voluntary Schools which were to be found in many parts; and that, as a matter of justice and religious liberty, he could not be discharged from the obligation which rested upon him to take care that in a parish where, at present, there was only one school, and that a Church of England School, and where there were a great number of children to be educated who belonged to other denominations than the Church of England, that no effort should be spared to carry out the broad system of religious liberty which was intended under the Act. He knew very well that in their large towns there was a choice of schools; but there were thousands of parishes where there was only an educational establishment which belonged to the Church of England.

LORD BUBGHLEY

said, he was sorry to hear the remarks which had fallen from the hon. Member who had just sat down, especially those on the subject of Voluntary Schools, because he thought they owed a great deal to the voluntary efforts of those who maintained the Voluntary Schools throughout the country, and it was a pity that those efforts and intentions should be placed in a wrong light before the public. With reference to the question of Voluntary Schools as against Board Schools, there happened to be in his county (Northampton) an instance, on the subject of which he had already had communications with the Vice President of the Committee of Council; and he hoped he might be allowed to draw the attention of the Committee to a few facts to show how unnecessary was the School Board which had been set up by the Department in the village of Rothwell, and that the Department had, in a great measure, exceeded the authority given them by the Act. He would not at any time be induced to bring a small local question before the House; but this was a matter of large importance in the village to which he referred, and was not the only case, he believed, in which School Boards had been forced on places where there was no necessity for them, and in which, through their having been imposed upon them, the rates had enormously increased. In the parish of Both-well, North Northamptonshire, there were two schools—one a Church of England School; and the other a British School. The Church of England or Grammar School was in a very flourishing condition, and among its pupils there were about 200 Dissenting children; whereas, on the other hand, the British School was in great distress, and the managers of that school who represented the poorer portion of the population had such difficulties in maintaining it at the standard at which the Education Department required that they were eventually compelled to give up the school altogether. That condition of affairs not only attracted the attention of the Education Department, but it also attracted the attention of the Trustees of the Grammar School, who wrote to the Education Department in March, asking to be allowed to meet the requirements of the village and to increase their school accommodation. No reply was for some time made to that application. On the 25th of April a reply came, which was to the effect that the Education Department could not take any notice of the applica- tion, because the managers of the British School had not yet made up their minds as to the line of action they intended to pursue. It appeared, however, that shortly afterwards, and without any further communication with the managers of the Grammar School, an order for the formation of a School Board was sent down, and that order for a School Board seemed to have been made upon the representation of a few persons to the Education Department without conforming with the requirements of Section 12 of the Act, which stated that public notice should be given a week previously that application was about to be made. The order was sent down for the establishment of a School Board on the 29th of May. Again, the 8th section provided that the Department should take into consideration every school, whether elementary or not; whether there was already in existence, or would be within a certain period, sufficient accommodation for the education of the children of the district. On the 25th of March a public meeting was held to consider the proposal to establish a School Board. ["May!"] The Board was to be elected on May 29.

MR. MUNDELLA

If the noble Lord will excuse me, I think I can put him right. I think there was a meeting held with the view of passing a Resolution with regard to the school some time in March, and the question of the School Board arose on that occasion.

LORD BURGHLEY

said, the right hon. Gentleman was no doubt right. There were two meetings—one to consider the proposal, and at the second there was a poll, in which a majority of 55 votes were against the establishment of a School Board. That was in March.

MR. MUNDELLA

That proposal did not emanate from the Education Department at all.

LORD BURGHLEY

said, in that case the position of the right hon. Gentleman was worse than he had supposed it to be. He had been under the impression that the right hon. Gentleman acted before the poll was taken; but it seemed he was in error, and that the right hon. Gentleman knew at the time when he decided on the establishment of the School Board that the majority of the ratepayers had decided against it. The hon. Gentleman opposite said it was very hard that in any locality where there was a large number of Nonconformists there should be but one school, and that the Dissenting children should be troubled with denominational teaching. But it appeared that there was a large number of Dissenters who did not think so, and he was moreover informed that the only religious teaching given to them at the Grammar School was that of the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments. It might be urged, as an excuse for the decision arrived at by the Education Department, that the Trustees of the Grammar School were dilatory in taking action and in providing the requisite accommodation. But even that was met by the 9th section of the Act, which provided that if, after the expiration of a period not exceeding six months, the requisite school accommodation was not supplied, the Education Department should cause a School Board to be formed. But during all that time the local gentry and others had promised to give sufficient accommodation; they had promised subscriptions, and they had at the present time provided a large room for carrying on the education of the children during the alterations, so that he thought there was no necessity for the School Board which the right hon. Gentleman had forced upon the parish, even if the charge were adhered to that the Trustees of the Grammar School were slow in providing the accommodation required. Then, with regard to the Resolution which was rejected in March. Schedule 12 provided that if a Resolution were rejected it should not again be proposed until 12 months had elapsed after such rejection. But there, again, the Department had ridden over their own Act, and ordered the establishment of a School Board where a good system of education was already existing. Somehow or other, they had in this matter transgressed every rule of their own Act, and now that the School Board was in existence at Roth well, the right hon. Gentleman would, perhaps, be able to show that it was more useful than the school accommodation already provided. But he was bound to say that the ratepayers would find it much more expensive, and would consider it a very bad return for the way in which they had carried on education in those parts for so many years.

MR. SPENCER

said, he should not have ventured to trespass on the time of the Committee were it not that he also, with the noble Lord who had just sat down, was a Member for the same Division of the county of Northampton in which Rothwell lay. His noble Friend had not come forward to defend the action of the Education Department, as he had hoped he would, but had taken the opposite course, and opposed the action of the Department in setting up a School Board at Rothwell. He felt himself forced, not to defend the Department, as they were perfectly able to do that themselves, but to state that he cordially and entirely agreed with the lines they had followed in this matter. If the noble Lord would allow him, he would just mention one or two facts which he omitted to refer to. First, his noble Colleague said that the National School at present had 200 Dissenting children. Well, he thought that was the greater reason why there should be a School Board. Secondly, Rothwell, in 1873, had not sufficient school accommodation by about 80 places; but there were then in the place two schools; there were 229 children in the Church Schools and 146 in the British Schools. Thirdly, the Church or Grammar School was not in existence before 1870 as a school. After 1883, when the required accommodation for 80 children was found, the Department passed the schools. The accommodation having been found, the school was passed; but on the Inspector reporting to the Department that all the requirements were not carried out, the British School set about making appeals for contributions. The sum collected, although it amounted to about £200, fell short of the sum required by about £700. Again, the architect who went down in 1883 to report on the plan of a building on which it was proposed to spend the money had it been collected, said it would not do at all, owing to the imperfect arrangements for the admission of light and air, and for other sanitary reasons. The managers then came to the conclusion that they must close the schools after the 1st of July. Thus 146 children would be without the means of education had it not been for the action of the Department.

LORD BURGHLEY

I quite admit that they were ready to hire a schoolroom. The Grammar School was ready to carry on the education of the children.

MR. SPENCER

said, he thought his noble Friend would agree with him that the Grammar School arrangements were not up to the requirements of Parliament. The Nonconformists objected to sending their children to the National Schools, and he would give three reasons why the National Schools were not at all suitable. First, it was doubtful if suitable accommodation could be got at the National Schools, as the present accommodation there was not up to the requirements of the Department, as there was no playground. Secondly, the time that would be required to build the National Schools, during which the children would be without any education; and, thirdly, because, had the National Schools been suitable, the Nonconformists' children would have been educated under the Church principles. He, of course, should not object to that, being a Churchman; but the Nonconformists naturally said, as he was credibly informed, that the children in the National Schools were taught the Church Catechism for three-quarters of an hour daily. He did not know whether his noble Friend had seen a letter which was addressed to the Vicar on the 13th of June, from the Department, in which the fact of the School Board being set up was explained, to remove the misapprehension which existed on the subject, and that it was by the 8th section, instead of by the 2nd sub-section of the 12th section, which he had by him, and would show the noble Lord if he wished it, but which he would not bore the Committee by reading. He might also add that, owing to the character of the trust, no other voluntary body could take the education of the children in hand, and hence a School Board was the body upon which it naturally fell to take in hand and direct their education. Although the noble Lord might call it sentimental, it was a good reason, to his mind, when he said that the Nonconformists felt it hard that they, who had had their own schools for 50 years, should either be compelled to leave their children without education at all, or send them to the Church of England School, where the accommodation was inadequate to the requirements of the place. He would ask the noble Lord and those who agreed with him, supposing that in his own locality there were more Roman Catholics than Protestants, and the schools of the latter being closed, how he would like to have pressure put upon him to send his children to the schools of the former denomination? In these circumstances which he had placed before the Committee, he ventured to think that hon. Members would agree with him that the line of condemnation of the conduct of the Education Department in this case, which the noble Lord had adopted, was rather too strong, and that in this, the last quarter of the 19th century, it was too much to set about curtailing and restraining that freedom of education of which for years the nation had been so proud.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

said, he was unwilling to intervene in the interesting duel which had just taken place between two evenly-matched combatants, but he wished to say a few words; because, although the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Spencer) had given some plausible reasons for the establishment of a School Board at Rothwell, he had not touched the essence of the question raised by the noble Lord (Lord Burghley), which was, whether the Education Department were or were not acting in accordance with the law in the course they had taken? Now, he contended, and he believed he could show, that the course pursued by the Education Department was illegal. The case to which the noble Lord had called attention was not an exceptional instance of the Department having exceeded its legal powers; it was not the first time that they had taken this mistaken course; and it was not long since a much more serious mistake occurred in his own constituency, and if the Education Department were right in the action they had taken in the particular case to which he referred, and if the arguments by which that action was sought to be justified were accepted, then the whole voluntary system of education in England was placed in absolute peril. He contended that Clause 12 of the Act was never intended to apply to the case of Willesden in Middlesex, or of Rothwell, and that the Department having made use of that clause had upset the whole compromise assented to in 1870. Clause 9, by which the Education Department could establish a School Board, prescribed a certain procedure to be followed. They were to give public notice of their deci- sion as to the school accommodation in any district, and then, if any 10 ratepayers objected, they had the power of forcing the Education Department to hold a public inquiry. That was a very important Proviso. Then, after notice had been served on the district, and if the accommodation was not supplied within six months, the Department had power to order a School Board to be formed. But Clause 12, which provided a summary mode of procedure, was not to be put in force except when there was practical unanimity between the district and the Education Department; and the only two conditions on which the Education Department could establish a School Board were — first, where the Local Authority itself made application for the establishment of a School Board; and, secondly, where the Education Department was satisfied that the managers of any Elementary School in the district were unable or unwilling any longer to maintain the school, and that, if it were discontinued, the amount of public school accommodation in such district would be insufficient. Now, it was never contemplated that a School Board should be set up if the managers of the schools were willing to maintain the existing schools. What had been the uniform practice up to the time when he left the Office was set forth in the Hand Book of the Education Department. It was, that the Department might without application order a School Board to be formed when they were satisfied that the managers were unwilling to continue a school, and when they had evidence that the amount of public school accommodation for the district was insufficient. No orders, however, were issued by the Department for the formation of a School Board on the representation of managers, until the inquiries with regard to the formation of a School Board in the district were sufficiently advanced. It was a fact that up to the date he loft the Education Department, no School Board had been set up under Section 12, except where the Local Authority had requested it, or where it was conclusively proved that the discontinuance of a Voluntary School would render the school accommodation of the district insufficient. But what happened two years ago in Willesden, Middlesex? Willesden was a very peculiar parish. Its population had increased more ra- pidly than that of any parish in the Kingdom; two years ago it was about 30,000. The ministers of all denominations made an effort to provide sufficient school accommodation. Something like 4,000 places were required, and they were provided. There was no deficiency whatever in the urban part of Kilburn and Willesden; but suddenly a small Wesleyan School in the rural district of Harlesden was closed by the manager. The accommodation at this school was only 1–66th part of the total accommodation, for the school was only attended by 120 children, of whom only 60 belonged to Willesden. Immediately there was a requisition from the Department, under Section 12, for the establishment of a School Board. The whole district rose as one man against a School Board being set up; the Earl of Carnarvon put a Question in the House of Lords upon the subject; but it was then too late. He challenged the Vice President of the Council to deny that in this matter an illegal use had been made of Section 12. What followed? A School Board was set up. An election took place. One gentleman connected with the school that had been closed was returned; but the other eight gentlemen who were elected were opposed to the establishment of a School Board. They were gentlemen who, though devoted to the cause of education, declined to build schools, because there was no deficiency. What had been the action of the Education Department during the last two years? and this was a point to which he wished to direct the attention of the Committee most particularly, because it imperilled the very existence of the voluntary system. The Education Department said, in effect—"Because we set you up to build schools you must build schools whether there is a deficiency or not." The School Board showed by a house to house visitation that there was no deficiency; but that, on the contrary, there was a surplus of accommodation amounting to 1,000 places. The Education Department contended that the accommodation was not suitable and not sufficient. A school twice the size of the one which had been closed had been opened in the vicinity; but the Education Department declined to recognize it, although the School Board recommended that it should be recognized. He did not think the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) could quote a single instance in which such a recommendation had not hitherto been acted upon by the Department. In Scotland there was a School Board in every parish, and, in order to get a good attendance of Roman Catholic children, the School Boards had over and over again recommended the recognition of Roman Catholic Schools. The result was that those schools had been recognized, and that a much more satisfactory attendance than would otherwise have been secured had been obtained. If the Department acted thus in Scotland, where there was a School Board in every parish, why did they not act in the same way at Willesden in Middlesex? However, the Willesden School Board, having satisfied themselves that there was no deficiency, but that there was an actual surplus accommodation, declined to build schools. The Education Department thereupon threatened to declare them in default, enjoining them to commence building operations before the 8th of next July. In other words, the ratepayers of Kilburn and Willesden were to be taxed for schools which were not necessary, because the Education Department had made an illegal use of a certain section of the Education Act. It so happened that in the districts in question the rates were exceedingly heavy, and that, as a matter of fact, one in every five ratepayers was more or less in default. He had the honour of the acquaintance of several gentlemen connected with the School Board, and he was persuaded they would not be consenting parties to the throwing of unnecessary burdens on the ratepayers. It must be borne in mind that if the Education Department were permitted to continue to act as they had acted in the case of Willesden, they could establish a School Board in any parish they chose. If it was competent for any small sect to close their school suddenly, and to declare that there was a temporary deficiency of school accommodation, and if it was within the power of the Education Department to decline to allow the district ta supply the deficiency, a School Board might be set up anywhere and everywhere. And now he came to the most serious part of the matter. In order to justify the action of the Department, the Vice President of the Council, speaking to his (Lord George Hamil- ton's) constituents, endeavoured to justify himself by saying that he (Lord George Hamilton) had done the same thing hundreds of times. The right hon. Gentleman was reported to have said— The Department were only carrying out the Act, and acting on the precedent set up by their Predecessors. What had been done on this occasion had been done hundreds of times by Lord George Hamilton. It was rather hard that that should have been said by the right hon. Gentleman, considering that he (Lard George Hamilton) never put Section 12 in operation at all. [Mr. MUNDELLA: I am not responsible for that report.] Also, in order to justify their action the Education Department, made use of an altogether new argument. They said— It may be that there is sufficient accommodation, but it is not suitable accommodation. He happened to have with him a copy of the instructions which were issued to Inspectors by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), when he was Vice President of the Council. They were instructions which had been systematically acted upon to ascertain what were the school requirements of each district. They were clear and distinct instructions, and they laid down what constituted "suitable." On page 4 of those Instructions it was stated that the school provision of a district would be suitable if there were some school or other under the Conscience Clause within the reach of every child whose parents wished him to have the protection of the clause; and it was further stated that the question whether the school accommodation was suitable would not arise in any case where there was sufficient public school accommodation. If they admitted that a school was not suitable because it belonged to any particular denomination, he maintained they would upset the whole principle of the Act of 1870. His hon. Friend the Member for North Northamptonshire (Mr. Spencer) had asked—"If you were resident in a district where there was nothing but a Roman Catholic School, how would you like to send your child to such school?" It would be their duty to send their child to that school; but, at the same time, it would be the duty of the Department to protect the child by the operation of the Conscience Clause. He believed that the Conscience Clause af- forded ample protection to any child. He contended that the course which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) had taken in regard to the cases in Northamptonshire and in Willesden was an entire reversal of the action of his Predecessors, and that it set up this most dangerous precedent—that if any small minority chose to create an artificial deficiency of school accommodation by temporarily closing a school, they could establish a School Board, or, in other words, a small minority could tax the whole district at will. Such action tended to turn topsy-turvy the principles of the Education Act; and, therefore, he considered his noble Friend (Lord Burghley) was amply justified in bringing his case before the Committee, though, perhaps, it was not so strong a case as the one he (Lord George Hamilton) had cited. The Committee would, perhaps, allow him to turn for a minute to one or two other topics. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) made an excellent speech, as he generally did. He spoke with enthusiasm of the general results of education during the past four years, and he did not in the least exaggerate the great improvement and growth which education had recently made. On the contrary, when he called the attention of the Committee to the fact that 27 per cent of the total number of children on the register were not in average attendance—that was to say, that only 73 per cent were in daily attendance—he hardly did justice to the country. He (Lord George Hamilton) had already asked the right hon. Gentleman whether he calculated the infants, because in England every child who was above the age of three was, on the register. [Mr. MUNDELLA: I spoke of all the children on the register.] It was hard to expect such children to attend school every day; yet they were included in the difference between the number who ought to attend and the number who actually did attend. In Scotland the attendance at school was better, in consequence of the children on the register being older. On the whole, he thought the actual results, in regard to attendance, were even more satisfactory than the Vice President of the Council made out. The right hon. Gentleman reminded them that this year the Education Department had lost the services of Sir Francis Sandford. The De- partment had lost a remarkable servant. He doubted whether any public servant had a more difficult task than Sir Francis Sandford had to put into practical operation the Act of 1870. That gentleman, in the work he had to perform, showed consummate tact and indefatigable industry; and his knowledge of men, which was so essential in putting into operation the provisions of the Act, had been most valuable to the Education Department. It was a satisfaction to the Committee to know that the services of Sir Francis Sandford would not be lost to the State, in as much as in future he would serve as a Charity Commissioner. The hon. Gentleman the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Stanley Leighton) called attention to a very pressing matter—namely, that of over-pressure in their schools. The hon. Member produced some strong evidence in support of his opinion; and though he (Lord George Hamilton) did not blame the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council for not alluding to the subject in the course of his remarks in introducing the Education Estimates— it was better the Vice President of the Council should, when fulfilling such a duty as he had performed that night, speak as to matters of fact than go into controversial subjects—he had always felt that any complaint made with regard to over-pressure ought to be carefully considered by the House. They, Members of Parliament, had, in their corporate capacity, established a system of compulsory education. They obliged every poor man to send his child to school, and every child that went to school was brought under a hard-and-fast system. It was not a system that he very much liked; and he was not sure that it was a system of which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) approved. It made no allowance for differences which must exist between children; but it forced everyone on at the same uniform pace. [Mr. MUNDELLA: Not now.] Well, it did so more or less. It must be borne in mind by the Committee that their own children were exempted from the operation of the system of education, the payment of which depended upon results. Everybody who took any interest in educational matters must have had brought under their notice cases where, notwithstanding all the advantages which wealth conferred, children were overworked. The remedy was very simple, because it really amounted to a little relaxation or change of air. But that was not available to the poor man's child. He admitted it might be said that the doctors who stated their opinion that over-pressure existed were specialists; but the same thing might, with equal truth, be said of the people who expressed an opposite opinion. He thought that when so many doctors held such strong opinions as to the existence of over-pressure in their schools, and when it was well known that many of the children did not get sufficient food, the Committee ought carefully to investigate the allegations with respect to over-pressure. Of course, it was easy to find fault with a system; the difficulty was to suggest a remedy. He was very glad the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council had so far relaxed the system of individual inspection as to give a merit grant to classes. He believed the teachers were in favour of abolishing, as far as possible, individual inspection. Now, the facts of the specific complaint which the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Stanley Leighton) made with regard to overpressure were contained in a letter in to-day's Times from a very distinguished authority on the subject—Dr. Crichton Browne. Dr. Crichton Browne's statement was to the effect that he was requested by the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council to make an inspection with regard to the alleged presence of over-pressure; that he devoted all his spare time to the inspection; and that when he made his Report, the right hon. Gentleman, who described it as a farrago of nonsense, declined to publish it. [Mr. MUNDELLA: Oh, oh!] Well, that he used strong language in respect of the Report. The hon. Gentleman the Member for North Shropshire alluded to what happened to Mr. Lowe some years ago, in order that from that allusion the Vice President of the Council should see that, if any gentleman was specially requested by him to report upon so delicate a matter as over - pressure, the Report presented ought to be published. Suppose Dr. Crichton Browne's Report had been favourable to the view of the right hon. Gentleman, would it not have been published? Why, when it was unfavour- able to his view, should the right hon. Gentleman suppress it?

MR. MUNDELLA

If the noble Lord will move for the Report I will give it at once; but I will not give it on my own responsibility.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

said, that, after the concession the Vice President of the Council had made, he would not press the right hon. Gentleman further upon the point; of course, when the Report was in their hands, the Committee would be able to estimate its value. The Vice President of the Council had paid a very eloquent tribute to the value of Voluntary Schools, and he had quoted the evidence of a distinguished Belgian as to the most beneficent influences of English religious sentiment. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the large number of children who attended Sunday Schools, and he oddly enough connected this great attendance with School Boards. But School Boards had nothing to do with Sunday Schools; indeed, his (Lord George Hamilton's) opinion was that if the attendance at Sunday Schools were analyzed, it would be found that an enormous majority of the children attended on the week days Voluntary Schools. The right hon. Gentleman admitted — he always had admitted—that Voluntary Schools formed an essential part of their educational system. There were, of course, some persons who objected to Voluntary Schools; but he (Lord George Hamilton) thought they did so because they believed that Voluntary Schools strengthened and fortified the Established Church, which they wished to overthrow. The Vice President of the Council must recollect that for some years past there had been great depression of trade and agriculture, and that that depression had unfavourably affected Voluntary Schools. They had been deprived of that annual increment which otherwise they would have obtained, while year by year additional pressure had been put upon them. If the voluntary system be tottering from want of support, he put it to the Committee whether it would not be well that some additional support should be given by Parliament? That, of course, was a delicate matter, and he did not want to introduce so controversial a subject into the discussion of the Educational Vote. Looking, however, at the matter simply from an economical point of view, he asked what would be the result if the voluntary system were to collapse? In London the School Board rate was very high; he did not think he was exaggerating when he said that a collapse of the voluntary system would be the cause of a doubling, at least, of the rate. He thought, therefore, they might all admit that it was worth while to attempt to support the Voluntary Schools of the country, and prevent them from collapsing. He had detained the Committee longer than he had intended to do; and in conclusion he would only say that, in reference to the operation of the 12th section of the Act in the two cases which had been cited, he thought the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council had been misled, and that he had acted illegally. Of course, any man might be misled by his officials; but the right hon. Gentleman must bear in mind that if he got the credit when his officials did right he must take the blame when they did wrong.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, he could not pretend to possess the same acquaintance of the facts surrounding the establishment of a School Board at Willesden as the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) possessed, nor did he know what the exact facts of the Northamptonshire case were, except in so far as they had been brought before the Committee. He thought, however, that his hon. Friend (Mr. Spencer) made a very satisfactory reply to the noble Lord (Lord Burghley) with regard to the case in Northampton. Now, he (Mr. W. E. Forster) would not have risen to speak in the present debate if it had not been for certain remarks which foil from the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton). The noble Lord referred to his own action when he occupied the position of Vice President of the Council; and he seemed to think that he (Mr. W. E. Forster) had never taken action under Sub-section 2 of Section 12 of the Education Act in the manner in which his right hon. Friend (Mr. Mundella) appeared to have taken action with regard to the setting up of a School Board at Willesden. So far as he could remember, he did several times exactly what the Vice President of the Council had done, and he found it absolutely necessary to do so.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

When the district was ready to supply the deficiency?

MR. W. E. FORSTER

Yes; and if his noble Friend would permit him, he would explain why the section was put into operation. His (Mr. W. E. Forster's) great object, and, he believed, the object of the majority of the Members of the House of Commons, was to got the children into school. Great difficulties were encountered, especially the religious difficulty, which he observed was now again exhibiting itself; but it was determined that the interests of education should not suffer, and that nothing should prevent the education of the children. That object it was necessary to secure in this special way. Although steps were taken to prevent Voluntary Schools being destroyed, it was represented to him that the managers and supporters of Voluntary Schools might themselves wish to get rid of a school. It was quite clear that if a Voluntary School were closed, and if, therefore, a real deficiency in school accommodation were created, an injustice would be done to the children. It was unfair to them that they should have to wait until all the formula which was necessary in the formation of a School Board were carried out; and, therefore, it was desirable that a School Board should be established at once. His noble Friend (Lord George Hamilton) made a mistake in supposing it was considered necessary, while he (Mr. W. E. Forster) was at the Education Department, that the authorities of a district should be in favour of a School Board before a School Board was established. He could mention several cases in which School Boards had been established in opposition to the wish of the ratepayers. One case occurred in Essex. On the 8th of February, 1871, a meeting of ratepayers of a parish in which it was proposed to set up a School Board was held, and the Resolution in favour of the formation of a School Board was negatived. A poll was demanded, but it was subsequently withdrawn, so that it was quite clear that the majority of the people of the district did not wish for a School Board. Notwithstanding that, the School Board was ordered by the Department in consequence of the deficiency caused by the closing of a Voluntary School. A similar case occurred on December 23, 1871, and again on January 13, 1872. His right hon. Friend, as far as he (Mr. W. E. Forster) knew, had simply continued the exact action of the Department at the time when he (Mr. W. E. Forster) was responsible for its management; and it appeared to him that if the noble Lord would read the sub-sections of the Rules, he would see that the consent of the district was not in the slightest degree required. It was simply this—where the Education Department were satisfied that the managers of an Elementary School in any school district were unwilling or unable any longer to manage a school, the school was discontinued if the schools were no larger. It all depended on whether the accommodation was insufficient.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

There should be inquiry.

MR. MUNDELLA

It was made before.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, he should be surprised to find that his right hon. Friend had not made an inquiry. It would have been straining the Act to order a School Board where there was a very small deficiency. Now, a good deal had been said about the question of suitability. He always felt, from the passing of the Act, that the difficulty of working it would depend very much on the interpretation of "suitability;" and this was one of those cases in which— if either party chose to go on their exact legal rights—the Act would be almost unworkable; but his hon. Friend and Colleague (Mr. Illingworth), with whom he did not exactly agree in this matter, used an expression well worthy of consideration. He said this matter must be worked with "toleration." If they tried to administer the law upon a strict interpretation by the law of the word "suitability," he (Mr. W. E. Forster) believed they would bring the whole thing to a standstill; and they would find that some legislation would follow very different from what they wished. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Hubbard) had made a suggestion as to increased grants; but he (Mr. W. E. Forster) did not think that Parliament would agree with the right hon. Gentleman. The sum they now gave was very large, and his right hon. Friend congratulated them upon its being so large. In so far as it was a sign of real pro- gress of education, they were all at one; but they did not wish to throw away money. He remembered that in 1870 he said he thought there would come a time of trial for Voluntary Schools, for many people would not be willing to pay twice over; and the extent to which Voluntary Schools would be carried on would depend very much on the zeal of the voluntary subscribers, and on the willingness of parents to pay larger fees than were paid at Board Schools. In many cases they were willing to do so; but he was inclined to think that part of the distress which was now felt by some of the Voluntary School managers arose from the fact that they made a greater effort immediately after the passing of the Act than they were able to keep up afterwards. He was sorry for them; but he confessed that, looking at the matter in what they would consider a hard-hearted way—from the educational point of view—he was glad they made the effort, and he believed that one reason why they had had this quick increase of schools in 15 years had been the rivalry between the School Board system and the Voluntary system; and he thought those who had suffered from it might be congratulated on having helped to get children educated much more quickly than they otherwise would have been. There was an argument he might use to some of his hon. Friends, who would still say it would have been so much better if they had paid no attention to Voluntary Schools, and simply established a great system of State schools. In time England would have had those schools, but it would have been a long time; and although it might be said that, first or last, they would have had the schools, there was a very great difference between first and last. It made an enormous difference to the children who came last; and it would make an immense difference to the country to lose all the advantages of their education. He did not wish to put it solely upon this result; but he candidly confessed that another reason he had was, that they ought not to lose sight of the advantages education had derived from the zeal and energy and practical knowledge of those who promoted it. [An hon. MEMBER: Which?] The education in Voluntary Schools. Therefore, he thought they ought to work the Act fairly; but, on the other hand, if those persons overstrained their zeal, and tried to make Dissenters send their children to their schools, they would hasten the passing of measures which he should much regret. Much was said about over-pressure. That complaint had arisen since he was at the Education Department, and he supposed it very much arose from their having got into the school so many of the poorest children, and also from the fact that those children were very untutored —indeed, had no previous education at all. They were so unprepared that it was difficult to pull them up to the level of the majority of children who came from homes in which they had had better training. That made a great difficulty, and it seemed to him that they ought to encourage managers and masters to make allowance for those children, and to see that there should be as much relaxation as possible in special cases. He thought his right hon. Friend had adopted those relaxation rules far more than his Predecessors did, and certainly much more than he (Mr. W. E. Forster), or the noble Lord opposite (Lord George Hamilton), did. It seemed to him (Mr. W. E. Forster) that his right hon. Friend had tried to do that as much as he possibly could; but they must remember that in so acting they must not do great injury to the general average of children. They would, in that case, be doing great harm to the country. With regard to payment by results, hon. Members who could look back to the time when Viscount Sherbrooke was Vice President of the Council would remember that he (Mr. W. E. Forster) was not an advocate of the noble Viscount's mode of working payment by results; but he confessed that to do away with that system altogether would be a most dangerous step. What was the state of things which required, in the noble Viscount's opinion, such a marked change? The reason was that schoolmasters gave way to the almost irresistible temptation to look after the clever children rather than to the average children, and they found that there were thousands of children in their schools who scarcely knew how to read. And they must also remember this, and the doctors must bear it in mind—the miserable condition of a large proportion of their population. He dared say most hon. Members had been impressed by the enormous proportion of the children in their schools who came from one-roomed houses. It was a most sorrowful fact that there was this condition of things; but when they had to deal with those children, they must expect some of those things to show themselves. He thought there was a proportion of from 50 to 80 per cent of those children; but it was a mistake to suppose that those children were, as a rule, more unhealthy because they went to those schools. That he knew was not the fact; but it was the fact that in some of the schools in London the children had longed for the holidays to come to an end, so that they might get away from their homes and back to the schools. That was a proof that they were not doing much harm to the health of the children, and it must not be forgotten that it was more and more the case every year, that it was a great injury to a child not to see that it could read and write. Years ago that was not the case, because then those who could read and write were comparatively the minority. Now, however, it would very soon be exceptional for people not to have that amount of learning, and they might well feel that it would be cruel not to enable a child to get hold at least of reading and writing. He could not let this discussion pass over without bearing his testimony also to the great services of Sir Francis Sandford. In some respects he was, perhaps, much better able to speak upon that point than any other hon. Member present, because he (Mr. W. E. Forster) and Sir Francis Sandford we're together when the Education Acts were being first started; and he could say that if it had not been for Sir Francis Sandford's untiring industry and his extraordinary tact and temper, and for his wisdom in meeting difficulties, he (Mr. W. E. Forster) did not know how they would have got through what certainly was the very difficult work of getting the Acts started in face of the opposition of those who were in favour of religious education and religious teaching, and also of those who were opposed to religious teaching in day schools, unless they had had a man of his wonderful tact and temper.

MR. J. G. TALBOT

said, he and his hon. Friends felt that if the Act was worked fairly, they would have no right to complain, and he was bound to say that when the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. W. E. Forster) was in the Department, the Act was worked fairly; but the question was whether there had been any departure since then from the policy of the right hon. Gentleman. He would not enter into the details of the matter now; but with regard to the case to which the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) called attention, it was, he thought, only right to mention these facts. On the 19th of May, an Order was issued for the formation of a School Board, although the figures showed that there was no deficiency; and he thought the case was so bad that there must be some reason for it that could be given. His noble Friend had been assured that that action was illegal; and when he said that there was accommodation in the schools for 4,500. and that Mr. Willis's estimate of the requirements was only 3,900, and there was, therefore, a surplus of accommodation, it was difficult to understand the principles upon which the Department had acted in that case. All they could suppose was that there had been some pressure used to induce the right hon. Gentleman to pursue that course, instead of following the line of his Predecessors. This debate had, he thought, begun in an unsatisfactory manner, because it commenced under the disadvantage of certain documents not being produced. It was always unsatisfactory if documents were referred to in debate to which access could not be obtained, and he thought the right hon. Gentleman would do well to lay on the Table in future all the documents which might be referred to in the debates on the Education Estimates. There were three documents which were essential to the discussion. The first was that referred to that night, and he must congratulate his hon. Friend (Mr. Stanley Leighton) on having extorted a concession from the Government; but he thought it would have been better if the right hon. Gentleman had laid the Paper on the Table before being constrained to do so by the appeal of his hon. Friend. That document was not a document sent up by Dr. Crichton Browne, as any other gentleman might have sent it, and which might have been asked for from the Department, but it was a document upon which the right hon. Gentleman had founded his defence. On Tuesday, the 19th of February, the right hon. Gentleman said— I have invited Dr. Crichton Browne to visit some of the ublic Elementary Schools of London, in company with one of Her Majesty's Inspectors, and to favour me with his opinion of their work from a sanitary point of view. I am glad to say he has agreed to do so. I am instituting the most careful and searching inquiries into these allegations of 'over-pressure,' and when they are completed the substance of them shall he laid before Parliament."— (3 Hansard, [284] 1331.) If the right hon. Gentleman had invited Dr. Crichton Browne to do work for him, he could hardly say afterwards that that work was suggested to him by the gentleman in question, for surely a Minister who invited an opinion from, a competent gentleman was bound to submit his opinion to Parliament when he had received it. He himself happened to know a school of 600 children in average attendance, which Dr. Crichton Browne had on two separate occasions investigated especially with regard to the sanitary condition of the school and the health of the children. He went into the school, determined to investigate whether over-pressure existed; and he spent some five or six hours on the two occasions in that inquiry. He thought it was a great pity that the Report of that investigation had not been laid on the Table before this discussion took place. Then there were two other documents that ought to have been produced. Some weeks ago there was an interesting discussion on the subject of pensions, and the House was promised a Treasury Minute. [Mr. MUNDELLA: Here it is.] There it was now; but why was it not there when the debate began? Why should the Committee be left to extort it from the Government?

MR. MUNDELLA

There is no extortion in the case. It is a matter which has been considered by the Treasury, and I brought the Minute down as soon as possible. I was not sure that it would be discussed this evening.

MR. J. G. TALBOT

replied, that the right hon. Gentleman had been appealed to frequently; and he must now repeat that it was much better to have these documents on the Table when they came to discuss these matters. There was one other document that ought to have been produced, and that was a copy of the Instructions issued to the Inspectors with regard to over-pressure. A great deal depended upon what those Instructions were. He had asked a Question on the subject, and the right hon. Gentleman had stated that he was going to give proper Instructions to the Inspectors, and that there would be no fear of this over-pressure of which some were afraid. But where was that document? It was not produced, and they on the Opposition side were placed at a great disadvantage in consequence. The right hon. Gentleman, of course, knew what the Instructions were, but they could not; and he did not think that was very favourable to the progress of Business. On the question of over-pressure, he wished to say it was not a question which depended only on the statements of enthusiastic philanthropists. He had Reports which had been presented in January of the present year, which had been drawn up by Professor Stokes, on the subject of over-pressure in London. One of those Reports stated that— The head mistress of Holland Street (Black-friars) Board School, girls' department, which I am inspecting this week, is absent with low fever, brought on, in her doctor's opinion, by overwork in school. This case is by no means a solitary instance. In another case, he said the head mistress of Hunter Street (Southwark) Board School, girls' department, had been absent for several weeks. She had literally worked until she dropped, and most serious consequences were apprehended. Again, the head mistress of Westcott Street (Southwark) School had suffered in the winter from a dangerous attack, and three of her assistants had been absent through ill-health. The Report went on to say— In the Webb Street, Bermondsey New Road, Board School, girls' department, an assistant of more than usual strength has lost her voice through over-exertion in school, and is recommended a six months' rest, with a voyage to Australia. Further on, Mr. Stokes said, under date January 18th, 1884— Hunter Street Board School—Mrs. Warner, certificated assistant, lately in charge of the babies' room, died this week, aged 32. Miss B. Dallimore, head girls' mistress, is still absent. Her sister, Miss A. Dallimore, certificated assistant, looks fitter to be patient in an hospital than teacher of a large school. Hearing from the head infants' mistress that Miss B. Dallimore was desirous of seeing me, I called at her house. She is still suffering from low fever, which her doctors, both in London and Brighton, attribute to overwork in school. Before leaving Brighton, last Monday, she told her physician that she wished to return to her school, and he replied that, should she do so, she would not live for a week. Miss Helen Taylor, of the London School Board, has visited Miss Dallimore, and shown much kind sympathy in the case. Webb Street Board School—In the infants' department, Miss Mirley, certificated assistant, was absent with a bad throat, through over-exertion. In the girls' department, Miss Seymour, certificated assistant, is permanently incapacitated by a chronic affection of the same kind; and a pupil teacher, formerly of much use, has gradually lost her eyesight till she is now unfit to teach. Of the Westcott Street Board School, which I did not visit, I heard that yesterday three certificated assistants in the girls' school (Mrs. Rigby, Mrs. Cross, and Miss Willis) were absent through illness; while a fourth certificated assistant, just returned, after sickness, was scarcely fit for work; and the head mistress appeared to be so much overtaxed that, in her case, a relapse is feared. These were cases not of overworked children, but over-strained teachers.

MR. LYULPH STANLEY

These cases were answered weeks ago.

MR. J. G. TALBOT

said, the cases might have been answered weeks ago; but whatever the answer was, these were statements made on good authority, and had been laid before the London School Board. He only mentioned them that the Committee might know the nature of the complaints. It had been said, and very justly, that having established a system of compulsory education it was incumbent upon them to be very careful that they attended to all complaints. There was an impression outside that these cases, as a general rule, were brought forward by hon. Members interested in the localities in which they occurred. There was also a general feeling that they were exaggerated; in fact, they were looked on as the crotchets of a few. He (Mr. Talbot) wished to show that, if hon. Gentlemen would take the trouble to investigate the matter, they would find that these cases of over-pressure really were not imaginary. At any rate, there was a strong primâ facie case for the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council to take pains to investigate the subject. Looking at the fact which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) had so well drawn their attention to, that in the condition of the children, and he was afraid he must also say in the condition of so many of their teachers, there was so much predisposing cause to break down, he thought it was only right that everybody concerned in these matters should be assured that when they came to Parliament to make a complaint they would have a patient and attentive hearing, and a full and explicit reply. He had just one word to say as to pensions. That matter had been very ably and exhaustively brought before the House by the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Brodrick) a few weeks ago. Several hon. Members had endeavoured to pin the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council to the exact condition of these pensions. He (Mr. Talbot) wished they had the document before them giving the exact condition of the pensions. He wished to make one more appeal to the Government on this question, and it was that while they were dealing with pensions they should do so generously. He had heard of a case which had occurred before the present relaxation of the Rule. The father of a well-known gentleman connected with education, whose name he was not going to mention, but a certificated teacher, left one situation in order to go to another, and there unfortunately happened to be a certain number of weeks between one appointment and the other. What he meant to say was, that this gentleman was a certain time out of occupation. He had "broken his residence"—to use a Poor Law expression—and it would hardly be credible to the Committee, but it nevertheless was a fact, that because of this break in the teacher's employment his application for a pension was refused— that was to say, a gentleman who had been many years under the Department, and had grown old in the Public Service, because of an accidental break between the two engagements, the arguments of the Treasury prevailed, he was sure, over the good nature of the Vice President, and the pension was refused.

MR. MUNDELLA

What is the date of that application?

MR. J. G. TALBOT

said, he had not provided himself with the date, but he could give the right hon. Gentleman the facts of the case privately, if he desired them. He should not like to mention them publicly. He mentioned this circumstance, because he was anxious that when pensions were given they should be given in the spirit in which he was sure it was intended that they should be given, and not according to a harsh literal interpretation of the Rule. If they did not adopt this course incalculable hardships might be inflicted upon deserving persons. Some of the aged teachers were in great distress, and were looking forward to what they conceived to be their absolute right. Whether it was a legal right or not, it had been admitted by the Secretary to the Treasury; and he (Mr. Talbot), therefore, trusted that he might appeal to that hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council to deal with the matter on a liberal scale. He had spoken just now about Inspectors, and the instructions given to them, and he was sorry to say that, whilst there were noble exceptions, all Inspectors were not what they ought to be. He did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council was familiar with the case which he was about to mention, but probably he was—it was the case of one of Her Majesty's Inspectors for the Spalding district in the county of Lincoln. A report had appeared on the subject in the public newspaper to which he had been referring. It appeared that a public meeting had been held in Spalding to consider the action of the Inspector in that district. He would rather not mention this gentleman's name unless it was asked for, because it was not pleasant to mention in that House officials who were unable to reply to any charges brought against them. He had been told that the Inspector had acted harshly with the schools with which he was connected, and that a great number of teachers had remonstrated with his action, as their bread almost depended upon the results of his inspection. This Inspector's Reports were conceived in the most hostile spirit to them, and they asked that their schools might be re-inspected. He believed from what he had heard—and he was speaking of course in the presence of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council, who would be able to correct him if he were wrong-but he believed that the Inspector was summoned to London, and requested to give an explanation of his conduct, being then sent back to the district with a strong intimation that he had better carry on his work in a different spirit. He (Mr. Talbot) had been told, but of this he could not give a positive assertion, that this gentleman Lad returned to the district, and was carrying on his operations again, but not in a very much improved spirit; in fact, that some teachers in the county of Lincoln were suffering under this gentleman, who took a very different view of what their duties ought to be from that which was ordinarily taken by Inspectors. This only illustrated what he had said a few minutes ago—namely, that everything depended upon the individual conduct of individual Inspectors. He had nothing to say against the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council personally in this matter, but the right hon. Gentleman and his Predecessors had established a different system of inspection to that which used to exist in the country. They had given away to a mistaken and foolish prejudice which prevailed in certain quarters, and refused to appoint clergymen of high character and large parochial experience, who knew what schools were, such as used to be appointed, and in their places selected young gentlemen fresh from the Universities, who probably had no personal acquaintance with the inside of an Elementary School — young gentlemen whose knowledge of young children probably was confined to their knowledge of their juvenile relatives. Some of these Inspectors seemed to take a delight in puzzling the minds of young children, and he (Mr. Talbot) had heard quite piteous stories of the confusion and consternation which young children suffered in the hands of these Inspectors. Speaking of his own recollection of examinations at Oxford, he could enter fully into the feelings of these unhappy children. But it was not merely that the feelings of the children were at the mercy of these Inspectors, but the salaries of the teachers were also dependent upon them. Not only were the Inspectors required to report as they always had been, but now the grants entirely depended upon their ipse dixit. It was entirely in the discretion of the Inspector to say whether a school was "excellent," "good," or "fair." He was supposed to be under the guidance of his superior officer, the Head Inspector, and that made it all the more desirable that they should know what were the Instructions given to the Inspectors. Without the exact terms of the Instructions they would have hardships occasionally arising, and if they were not given it was obvious that great injustice would be done to them. He hoped he had not stated the case too strongly, and that the right hon. Gentleman would bear it in mind. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman and the Committee that the matter was strongly felt in a great many Elementary Schools in the country, and he was perfectly convinced that any attention that might be given to it would be attention well bestowed. There was a point connected with the subject he had already referred to, which he wished to bring before the notice of the Committee, as to the merit grant. There were some facts which illustrated the curiously erratic tendency of Her Majesty's Inspectors. He had in his hand a statement as to the difference in the awards and grants in different parts of the Metropolis. It was difficult to account in any rational way for the fact that out of 46 departments in Lambeth only three received the highest reward, seven being marked "fair;" whereas out of 37 in the Tower Hamlets, 13 were marked "excellent" and nine "fair." A still more remarkable contrast was shown between the 27 departments in Greenwich, three of which were marked "excellent" and nine "fair;" and the 26 in Pinsbury, where no less than 19 were marked "excellent" and one "fair." Of course, there might be an explanation of this strange discrepancy; but he was sure of one thing, that the right hon. Gentleman would not say that it was not fair to give the wealthier districts a higher mark than the poorer districts, because what he understood, and what he was sure the House understood, was that it was the intention of Parliament, in sanctioning the arrangement of the marks upon which the fortune of the school so much depended, that some attention should be given to the circumstances under which the schools were placed. It could not be expected that the schools in the poorest localities, attended by children of the poorest class, could attain such results as schools more favourably situated, although they might be doing as good or even better work. A school that had intellectual merit of the lowest quality to operate upon might be doing much better work than a school which had much higher intellectual merit to devote its labours to, although it might not have such high intellectual results to show. There was nothing to be objected to in the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. They all subscribed to the satisfaction with which he regarded the progress of education—the increased average attendance, and the increased average of passes. He (Mr. Talbot) could not help thinking, when he heard the right hon. Gentleman say that children left school earlier and earlier every year, and when he had described how hard it was upon these young children that they should have to be put to manual labour—he could not help thinking that, perhaps, some of the children might prefer the physical labour of the fields to the mental pressure and overstraining in the School Board establishments. He did not think it at all followed that children were inhumanly treated because they were taken from school at an early age and put to work in the fields. The right hon. Gentleman must feel the pressing necessity of the conditions— that a supply of manual labour was a great necessity in the present state of things. There was too great a tendency in the present day to look disparagingly on manual labour, and to raise to unnatural heights intellectual labour. Almost everybody was desiring some kind of intellectual labour in preference to-manual work; the position of intellectual labour was elevated, whilst the labour of tilling the ground, which was quite as honourable, if not more honourable, was now looked upon with something like contempt. There was a desire to keep children to school as long as it could be managed, and their agriculturists were left with a scanty supply of manual labour for agriculture. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman would not desire that; but it was constantly being spoken of in the agricultural districts. It was constantly complained that there was great difficulty in getting labour for the operation of tilling the ground. He did not think it necessary to educate the children up to the full stretch of their abilities, and up to a somewhat advanced age, and then send them out to labour in the fields. On this point he might say that to his mind the organization of night schools had not received sufficient attention in their educational system. He did not know whose fault it was, but there certainly was some fault somewhere. In Scotland there was a great deal of education given in the evening to children employed in agriculture, much more than was given in this country. He was not speaking of home lessons done after school work, as he believed that to be a very doubtful experiment; but he meant keeping up the education which children had received in day schools in the evenings, when their work was done. Any instruction that could be given in that way must be a most valuable contribution to the real social and intellectual improvement of the children, and everything that could well be done in that direction should be done. They must all agree that the progress the right hon. Gentleman and his Predecessors had made in this work was very considerable; but it was a progress which should go on more and more in proportion as they worked, not in forcing the people, but in operating with them.

MR. LYULPH STANLEY

said, an appeal had been made to him by the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down in reference to the case of the person referred to in Mr. Stokes's Report in connection with the Southwark School. He was sorry the hon. Gentleman had brought the case forward without taking the pains to fortify himself with the particulars, because he (Mr. Lyulph Stanley) could assure him that when these cases were sent down to the London School Board for investigation, and were inquired into, they proved to be a mass of hearsay statements. So much was this the case that, in one instance, where it was stated that the mistress was dead, it turned out that she was really alive. If the hon. Member wished for information on these points, and would apply for it to the clerk of the School Board, no doubt it would be given to him without difficulty. Whatever illness had taken place amongst teachers of the schools was not due to the exaggerated character of the curriculum in the schools, or the deficient supply of teachers, but through natural causes. He should like to say a word on this question of over-pressure. He did not agree with the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Stanley Leighton), who had brought forward this question; he did not believe that there was so much suffering from over-pressure in the schools; but, on the contrary, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Brad- ford (Mr. W. E. Forster) had said, he believed that as a rule the children of the poorest parents in London, miserable and half-fed, passed their happiest hours in the schools and playgrounds of the London School Board. He knew it was a fact that the children often came back to the schools eagerly and gladly from their wretched homes in the courts and alleys of the Metropolis. He certainly agreed that over-pressure existed in the schools of England to some extent; but that over-pressure fell mainly on the teachers and not on the children, and especially on the pupil teachers. He was very glad to hear the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) drop a remark to the effect that he was in favour, as far as possible, of the substitution of adult teachers on the teaching staffs for pupil teachers, for he was sure that not only was the kind of education given unsatisfactory when children were sent to teach children, but also that the strain on the child who taught by working them in the day and instructing them at night, was so injurious that it was time a stop should be put to the system. The right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council had introduced into the Code a restriction in the hours of labour of pupil teachers; but he was sorry to say that the right hon. Gentleman got very little support from the hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Talbot) and hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House, because deputation after deputation had waited upon him stating that if the schools were deprived of this amount of child's labour, they would not be able to make ends meet. The time, however, had come when the Department should insist on the pupil teachers at no time being more than half-timers, so that they should have half the working hours for work, and the rest for study. But he said, further, that he thought the Education Department was answerable for the pressure on the adult teachers as well, because whilst they had largely widened the curriculum—and they could give as liberal teaching now through the class subjects as they did before in specific subjects—the staff required was almost exactly what it was originally. There was one certificated teacher to every 80 children, which everyone knew was not adequate. But the state of things was worse than that, because the Education Department not only put in a minimum which was treated as a maximum, but in two other Articles of the Code treated this minimum as a maximum. Whilst he admitted that the teachers, especially the women teachers, were subject to the strain of being required to teach large schools of irregular children who were only making 73 per cent of the necessary attendances, he also said that the Department were themselves to blame, though he knew they were acting under pressure from hon. Gentlemen opposite who had raised the cry of overpressure on the question of an increase of grant to Voluntary Schools. Of course, if this increase of grant was given to that class of schools it would have to be given to the Board Schools also. He would point out that if the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard) were accepted, and an increased grant to the extent of 4s. per head was given to the Voluntary Schools, it would be given all round, and this increase of grant would be putting money into the pockets of many managers of schools. No doubt many hon. Members, particularly those interested in education, were aware that many schools now made a profit. In Manchester, the School Board did so in two of their schools, and he did not begrudge it them; but he did not think that a proposal to add 4s. a-head all round, which would mean an increase of expenditure from the Treasury of £700,000 a-year at once, should be adopted. The Education rate was bound to go up, and would never come down. The object of the proposal to increase the Government grant was that this money should be given to relieve the subscriptions of voluntary subscribers, and it was not proposed that the schools should be 4s. per head bettor staffed and better supplied with appliances. The increased amount to be raised from taxation was not to be given for the education of the people, but for the relief of those managers who were struggling to maintain—chiefly at the expense of the State—their own denominational tenets. He was sure Parliament would never sanction in these days such a thing as that. For his own. part, he should not mind the time coming when there would be much more money spent on education; but he certainly should be sorry to see the money spent on keeping alive a system which had not sufficient vitality in itself to keep itself in existence—namely, the voluntary system. The right hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard) had given them an illustration of the hardship of which he complained. With regard to 40 schools in London, he (Mr. Lyulph Stanley) had worked out a simple sum by which he found that each child was earning, on an average, 14s. per head. He was certain that if the noble Lord went to those schools he would find them in a bad state. One of these struggling Voluntary Schools had had to be closed by the sanitary authority on account of its condition, which was such as to nullify all the good it might do. Another was conducted under two railway arches, and was in such a condition that if the School Board were to attempt to keep it open permanently, they would be called upon peremptorily to close it. With regard to the subject of the formation of Willesden School Board, which had raised several most important questions, he would like, in conclusion, to make a few remarks; and, first of all, say a word or two as to the meaning of "suitable" accommodation, because a great deal depended upon that. The noble Lord had mentioned the Instructions issued in connection with the Education Act by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), in which Instructions he stated that primâ facie any school receiving a Government grant, and having a Conscience Clause, was suitable. As the right hon. Gentleman had expressed it, that was, no doubt, correct. But it was a case which might be rebutted. He came now to other utterances of the right hon. Gentleman, in which he laid down that regard was to be had to the religious convictions of a large proportion of the population, thereby placing a more liberal construction upon the term "suitable." But he would point out that when the noble Lord was at the head of the Department, he, and before him Lord Sandon, assented repeatedly to the proposition that the religious denomination of a school receiving a Government grant might make it unsuitable. They had, therefore, the uninterrupted prac- tice recognized that if they were to have denominational education, it would not be politic to force Protestant children, for instance, into Roman Catholic Schools, or the reverse. In that spirit the London School Board had always acted towards the Roman Catholics. He would ask the noble Lord whether he bore in mind this fact about Willesden? He thought the noble Lord must know that in the accommodation of Willesden two schools were reckoned, with 2,300 places—which were inside London—and one of them, St. Augustine's, Kilburn, with 1,700 places, had 300 or 400 vacant places which were not available, both because of the high fee, which ranged up to 1s., and because of the extreme ecclesiastical character of the clerical managers, which was as distasteful to many persons as Roman Catholicism would be. It was contended that no school was needed at Willesden; but quite lately, in that part of it called Harlesden, a school had been built and opened, and the managers had applied for annual grants, which refuted the statement that no school was needed; and of that there could be no doubt, having regard to the rapidity with which Willesden had increased. He had listened with interest to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council, and he wished he could take as sanguine and rosy a view as the right hon. Gentleman did of the situation. He confessed that the standard of education in this country was miserably low as compared with other countries, and the Report of the Commissioners on Technical Education showed that we were very much behind in that respect. This was due to the Denominational Schools, which were many of them admittedly in a bankrupt condition, and he looked forward to the time when the question with regard to them would be re-opened.

MR. R. H. PAGET

said, the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Lyulph Stanley), with the compulsory rate behind him, could draw upon it to any extent to gratify his extravagant ideas with regard to Board Schools. He seemed to delight in casting suspicion on the exertions of the Voluntary Schools; but he entirely forgot that the instincts of the country were in favour of those schools—that at that moment two-thirds of the whole of their children were educated in those schools. Now, in dealing with the so-called Voluntary Schools, as the hon. Member styled them, and speaking in terms, which were far from satisfactory, of the voluntary system, the hon. Member ignored what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) did not ignore—namely, that Voluntary Schools had been kept alive by persons who, in addition to the cost of them, paid the School Board rates. They paid double, in fact. It was not the 3s. or 4s. per head which the hon. Member spoke of; but it was a heavy burden which the supporters of Voluntary Schools paid out of their own pocket in order to keep up the Board Schools, and they did so because their religious feelings dictated to them what was their duty in this matter. He had listened to the speech of the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education with great interest, and he would congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on being able to state to the Committee that he had succeeded in continuing the work which began in 1874, and had gone on year by year with increased educational advantage to the whole of the nation. One remark of the right hon. Gentleman, he thought, was worthy of attention. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to the irregularity of the attendance at the schools; but that irregularity was diminishing yearly, for two reasons— first, because they were now in full possession of that compulsory system of attendance which had been extended to the Voluntary Schools, as well as others, by the late Government; and the other reason was, that they had at last reached a period when they had succeeded in educating the people of the country to the fact that there was a necessity for educating their children. It had taken some time to bring that home to the great mass of the people of the poorer classes in the country; but it had reached their minds at last, and it had already begun to have a considerable effect in increasing the attendance at schools. He was glad to find the right hon. Gentleman paying a tribute to the Voluntary Schools, which he thought they very well deserved. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to recognize the merits of those schools, for the school which he especially singled out for the admiration of the Committee, was that of Miss Franks, at Hatfield, and of which he said he could not speak in terms too high. Why was it that the Voluntary Schools presented such satisfactory results? It was, as the right hon. Gentleman had said, because in the Voluntary Schools the children were cared for. That was exactly the point. The children were cared for—they were not the mere units of the Board School system; their bodies and souls were the care of the managers, the teachers, and the supporters of the schools. He was much struck by another remark of the right hon. Gentleman, who appeared to have been very much interested in the saying of a great Belgian statesman, who attributed the greatness of England to the religious sentiment implanted in the breast of Englishmen. The right hon. Gentleman, in some remarkable way, seemed to give the School Boards credit for all this; for he said that the religious sentiment was the outcome of Sunday Schools, Sunday Schools were the outcome of Board Schools, and, therefore, School Boards were the cause of the greatness of England. That was the line of argument adopted by the right hon. Gentleman, and he had felt tempted to ask him whether the greatness of England began with the creation of School Boards, or whether the religious sentiment to which it was ascribed had not been in the minds of the people before those institutions were ever thought of? It was with the greatest possible satisfaction that he heard that there were about 5,000,000 scholars in the Sunday Schools throughout the country, and he could only hope that the right hon. Gentleman was accurate in his figures. He was afraid, however, that he had no information which would thoroughly justify that statement, and that it would be found to be a somewhat hazardous guess, rather than an official calculation which could be relied upon. But it might be that a portion of the scholars had been induced to attend a Sunday School, because they had received some portion of their previous education in schools in which they had no religious teaching. Would the right hon. Gentleman say, however, that because they had been taught in secular schools, and had been denied the daily bread of religion in the schools they had been obliged to attend, and which got a benefit by it, the Sunday School system had been in any way a substitute for daily religious teaching? He should be surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman make such a statement as that, because the statement made and the argument used might lead an ordinary observer to suppose that the best method of teaching a child religion was to starve him during six days of the week, and give him religious instruction on Sunday only. With reference to the subject of over-pressure, which had been debated at considerable length that evening, he confessed there was a great deal to be said upon it; but they must bear in mind that the great majority of those who attended Elementary Schools, were children whose condition of life prevented their attendance at school for any lengthened period. The number of years which they could devote to educational purposes must necessarily be few, and they must secure to those children that the teaching given to them in those few years should be as thorough as it could be made. It should be practical, useful, and, above all things, thorough. Now, were the condition of the schools such as would insure the result? He thought that in one respect it was not so. The system of school teaching, which required that a child should year by year advance a Standard, was one which was not likely to conduce to the thoroughness of teaching, because the child was forced on to a Standard for which he was unfit at a time when the child's interest would be best served by leaving him for two years in the previous Standard. The Rules of the Department forbade that. [Mr. MUNDELLA: No.] He took issue with the right hon. Gentleman. The Rule was, as he had stated, unless there was "delicate health, prolonged illness, obvious dulness, or defective intellect." [Mr. MUNDELLA: It does not apply at all.] So far from it not applying, it dealt with the very subject he was considering. His point was, that unless there were the "reasonable excuses" mentioned, when once a child got out of the infant stage, the Rules put him into a higher Standard year by year; the child must be examined in a fresh Standard, unless it came within the clause he had cited. It was part of the cast-iron rule of the Department; it was cruelty to the children themselves; and it had this tendency—that in order to get them into a higher Standard for which they were not fitted, the teachers were obliged to feed them, so to speak, with mental food which they could not digest, which, instead of doing them good, did them an injury. He did not say of necessity that it injured their health; it was their education which was likely to suffer by the Code being allowed to remain in this respect as it then was. He gave the right hon. Gentleman credit for having in his Code introduced many improvements upon previous Codes; and he admitted, with regard to specific subjects, that the change made was most useful and satisfactory, and that it had done something to moderate the ambition of those school teachers and managers who wanted the children to do more than they were able to perform. But, with all the excellencies of the present Code, they should not shut their eyes to the fact that there were blots upon it—that this was the proper opportunity for debating those defects; and that their sole object should be to improve, as far as possible, the system of public elementary education. Notwithstanding all that had been said in the course of the discussion of that evening, he was bound to state that he entirely agreed with the view that the system of payment by results was a vicious system; and he would put it to the right hon. Gentleman whether the time had not arrived for considering whether they might not take a fresh departure? Looking upon education as having reached a stage which a few years ago no one would have dared to prophecy for it; considering that they had largely, if not entirely, overtaken the arrears of the past, and that they had in full work a complete system of Elementary Schools, with an admirable staff of both school teachers and Inspectors, surely they might now largely modify the system of payment by results—a vicious system, which was once necessary as a stimulus. He thought it would De an easy thing to modify the system; and the easiest way, perhaps, would be to increase the grant for attendance, and give less upon the Reports of Inspectors. By so doing they would do much to remedy many of the evils now bitterly complained of. Pressure was, probably, put upon the Department by the Treasury; and he should not be surprised if the Gentleman who was the real origin of the pressure, in this instance, was seated by the right hon. Gentleman—because he had observed that, when the right hon. Gentleman, in the course of his interesting speech, was alluding, in magnificent terms, to millions of expenditure upon education, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, when the final figures were reached, fairly took flight and left the House. It was only a very natural thing that, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer's pockets were not too full, the right hon. Gentleman should exercise a careful scrutiny of the expenses of every Department; it was very natural that the right hon. Gentleman should say to the Heads of the Education Department — "Your expenses are getting too great; cannot you keep them in check?" There was no doubt that a little more stringency in examination, a little more difficulty in earning the Government grant, would be very gratifying to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer. One thing was quite certain, and he (Mr. Paget) did not think the Vice President of the Council would deny it, or, if he did, it would be because he was not aware of the circumstance, and it was this — that the examinations of the last 12 months had been in some respects more stringent than hitherto. There was an impression abroad, rightly or wrongly he could not say, that the increase of stringency was done to special and secret instructions to the Inspectors, that they must be more stringent. A manager of very large experience had told him that he saw the sums which were set the children, and those which were set the little children of the 4th and 5th Standard were so difficult and puzzling that he did not expect for a moment the scholars would be able to do them. He had received similar complaints by letter from teachers; but the writers had asked him not to divulge their names, because, if he did, they feared it might be possible that their Inspectors would treat them with even increased severity. This reminded him of another point which he thought was one which required to be insisted upon, and it was that the work of the Department ought to be done more openly than it was done at present. It was admitted that there were from time to time secret instructions given to Inspectors. Why should the instructions be secret? Why should there be anything that the Department had to say to the Inspectors with regard to the execution of their public duties that they should not publish to the world? If it was necessary that Inspectors should turn their attention more strictly to reading, writing, and arithmetic, or to anything else, why not publish the instructions given, so that teachers and managers might know what they were to expect? Why instructions to Inspectors should be communicated mysteriously and secretly he could not conceive, unless it be that there was a deliberate desire to pull down the grant, or, in other words, that the schools should earn less than at present. There was another point he wished to allude to. He was told that Inspectors were in the habit, in respect to the subject in which it was most difficult for the children to pass—the subject of arithmetic —to bring the questions of problems with them, get the children to do them, and take the papers away with them, without allowing the teachers to see the sums which had been given. The teachers, therefore, never knew whether the children had done the sums or failed in them, and they were quite unable to point out to the children how to remedy any mistakes that had been made. He contended that such a system was most improper and unwise. It was quite right that the teacher should be prevented assisting a child in his work; but when a child had done his sums to the best of his ability, why the teacher should not be allowed to see what had been done he (Mr. Paget) could not conceive. There was yet another point in respect to the question of secrecy, and it was a point which the Vice President of the Council would do well to keep in mind. Under the present system very much depended upon the Report of the Inspector. An Inspector gave his Report "excellent," or "good," or "fair," and the grant fell or rose according as the school was designated. But in the Report sent in, the Inspector gave no hint as to why a school was marked "good," "fair," or "excellent." It was cruel to the teacher that such information should be withheld from him. Every Inspector should be instructed to send in a Report clearly indicating in w hat departments the school fell short of "excellent" and in what departments the school was only "good" or "fair." The right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council seemed to be somewhat astonished at such a suggestion; but he (Mr. Paget) knew schools in which, after the examination was over, the head teacher came up to the manager with a beaming face and had said—"The children were all present, they seemed to answer very well, the School Inspector seemed satisfied, and made no complaints. I did not see the sums, because he took them away; but as far as I can learn we had done very well, and shall earn a capital grant." Weeks passed by, and what happened? The hopes of the teacher were dashed to the ground; the Inspector's Report was nothing but "fair," and no reason why it was only "fair" was assigned. Such a system was a bad one, because it did not afford the teacher an opportunity of knowing in what respect the children had failed to reach a higher standard of excellence, and it absolutely hindered the children in receiving those benefits which the Department professed to offer them so freely. He hoped the remarks he had made would be seriously considered by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella), because he ventured to say that if the right hon. Gentleman eliminated the whole of that secrecy which was part of the regular Departmental action in regard to the points specified, he would do much towards remedying the grievances of which he (Mr. Paget) and others now complained. The right hon. Gentleman ought also to get rid of the attempt to obtain rigid uniformity and progress, because it was idle to expect that the mental capacity of a child would year after year maintain a uniform rate of progress. The mind of a child did not grow equally every year any more than his body did. In this matter he (Mr. Paget) put it to the right hon. Gentleman that there was room for considerable improvement. The only thing he had to suggest, in conclusion, was that the Vice President should, despite what had fallen from some hon. Members opposite, consider whether it would not be well, in the interest of the great mass of children who attended Voluntary Schools, that some addition to the grant should be given for attendance. He would not propose that such a grant should be given to a school so that a profit could be made out of it; but he thought it should be given where it was wanted, where by its being given a real and substantial benefit would be conferred upon the education of the country. It must be remembered that though the requirements of the Code might press heavily upon Board Schools, they pressed ten times as heavily upon Voluntary Schools. A Board School never had the anxiety of the possibility of failing from want of funds; but that was an anxiety which was always present in the mind of the manager of a Voluntary School. The manager of a Voluntary School had no school rate to fall back upon, and it very often happened that if the Government grant was less than he and his teachers imagined they had earned, he was face to face with a deficiency. If the difficulty of meeting the deficiency was insurmountable, he had to face the certainty of inevitable extinction. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) had expressed himself handsomely with regard to Voluntary Schools; and he (Mr. Paget) only asked that his (Mr. Mundella's) action might be as handsome as his words. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would remember that the interest of the country was clearly shown by the fact that two-thirds of its children were now educated in Voluntary Schools—the instinct of the country was unquestionably in favour of the voluntary system, which the Act of 1870 was intended to supplement and not to supplant.

MR. SAMUEL SMITH

said, he only intended to occupy the attention of the Committee for two or three moments while he referred to a subject which had not been touched upon during the present debate, a subject which he thought would have some interest for hon. Members. The subject was that of grafting industrial training upon the school system of the country, as a means of grappling with the poverty, destitution, and pauperism in their great towns. It had been said with truth that their educational system had been a great success as regarded the mass of the population; but he feared it had not been a success with respect to what they might call the residuum of the population; it had not got thorough hold of the poor children, such as were described in the bitter cry of Outcast London; it had not acted upon them with the full measure of benefit that was hoped. What, therefore, he had to suggest to the Committee was the expediency of grafting some industrial training on the common school system of the country, something after the style of that training which obtained in district schools, reformatories, and industrial schools. Those who paid any attention to the alleviation of the miserable condition of the poor in their large towns must be well aware that pauperism was in a large measure hereditary; that the pauper class reproduced itself; that pauperism went on from generation to generation. He was persuaded that if any serious impression was to be made upon this degraded class, it must be done by exercising a much stronger control over the children than had hitherto been exercised. He was not alluding now to paupers in the strict sense of the term, but to that class who were for the most part ignorant of any useful trade, and who were intemperate and vicious in their habits. The children of this class ran riot in the streets; there was no efficient control over them after they ceased to attend the National Schools; and the little benefit they received there was soon washed out of them. In his opinion, the State should undertake to exercise a certain control over such children for some years after the time they left school. Unless it did so, most of the children to whom he referred would drift into that class of persons who had no proper means of livelihood. At present they got no training in any skilled trade; and, indeed, if the State did not take them in hand, they never would be trained in any useful industry. He suggested that the State should exercise some degree of supervision and control over these children up to the age of 15 or 16 by means of night schools. As children of the corresponding class in Germany and other parts of the Continent were required to do, children who had left school in this country should be required to attend a night school for industrial training several evenings a-week. The Technical Commissioners, in their Report, referred to the fact that in all the towns of Germany and Switzerland children who had left the ordinary schools were compelled to continue their studies in the evening till the age of 16, and the Commissioners stated that too much stress could not be laid upon the value of this requirement. Now, what he proposed was, that they, in this country, should undertake something equivalent to what was done in Germany and Switzerland, and other Continental countries; that they should require children to continue under some species of training in the evenings until they had attained the age, say, of 16 years; and he thought that training should be mainly industrial, such as was now given in that excellent London Institution called the Polytechnic. He did not for a moment say that a hard-and-fast rule should be made, because there were many to whom it was quite unnecessary to apply such regulations. He would not, for instance, propose to apply the rule to those children whose parents exercised proper surveillance over them, and educated them thoroughly. Had the State adopted years ago some such plan as he suggested, he was persuaded much would have been done to decrease the pauperism and destitution of their large towns. He assured the Committee that this was a very large and a serious question, because, at the present moment, their towns were full of half-employed unskilled labourers, often on the verge of destitution. An improvement in the present state of things could not be effected unless the State laid hold of the children, and put them under far more stringent training than it had hitherto done. He would not, at that hour of the night (12.50), trespass further upon the attention of the Committee; but he hoped that very shortly there would be an opportunity of discussing this subject more fully.

MR. BULWER

said, that nothing had struck him more during the debate than the want of harmony between hon. Members and those they represented out-of-doors. It was all very well for hon. Members to have views such as had been enunciated by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Liverpool (Mr. Smith) about spending money in industrial training, and giving boys this education and that education; but what did the man who had to find the money, and who had hardly enough to provide education for his own children, say to all this? No one was more in favour of education than he (Mr. Bulwer); he wished that every child should be educated; but he did not wish that a man who had barely enough to make both ends meet should be taxed to pay for the education of children who were not his own. If they were going to educate their children, let them teach them what was necessary for every child to know—how to read, write, and cipher; and if that was only a very slight education, and they would be liable to forget it, let them be brought up every two or three years, and, if they had forgotten it, teach them again. But to spend the people's money in giving them such an education as would enable them to understand an answer of the Prime Minister, was too much. He was acquainted with the facts connected with the establishment of the School Board at Both well, in Northamptonshire, to which reference had been made that night. The school there was a very good one, and it was taking the place of all the other educational establishments in the vicinity. There was a second school —he did not think it belonged to the Church of England—which could not compete with its rival, and it was, therefore, closed; whereupon some of the people came to the Education Department and said—"There is not sufficient school accommodation for the population, therefore we must have a School Board." The existing school authorities were willing to do what he understood the people of Willesden were willing to do—namely, to enlarge their school so as to meet the requirements of the district. But that did not suit the gentlemen who wanted to force a Board School upon the population; and how the matter had been settled by the Education Department he did not know. It was not that the Voluntary Schools wished to displace the other Denominational Schools; but all the managers wanted was that they should be permitted to meet the requirements of the parish, and thus prevent a School Board being forced upon an unwilling population. He wished to say a few words upon the question of over-pressure in schools. There was no doubt that a great mass of evidence had been adduced to prove the existence of overpressure, and he had been very much struck by the letter which Dr. Crichton Browne had written to the editor of The Times. Dr. Crichton Browne stated that he was employed by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Mundella) to make investigations and report upon the sub- ject, but that when he made his Report the Vice President of the Council very carefully kept it from the cognizance of the House and the public. Now, everyone knew that over-pressure in schools was very likely to occur; he had known it in his own experience. A friend of his who took the degree of Senior Wrangler, killed himself by the exertions he made to obtain the honour. If such was the result of over-pressure in a man of mature age, what was it likely to be with little children in Elementary Schools who had the strongest incentives to exert themselves?

MR. MUNDELLA

said, at that hour of the morning he hoped the Committee would forgive him if he was as brief and concise as possible in dealing with the subjects that had been last addressed to them. The hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Stanley Leighton), who introduced the discussion, he thought had indulged in a style of argument that was not usual in that House. The hon. Gentleman admitted that he (Mr. Mundella) had treated the Committee very courteously, but the hon. Gentleman hardly reciprocated in kind, for he asked him (Mr. Mundella) whether he had one code of morals for private and another for public use, and he thought the hon. Gentleman must feel, on reflection, that his method of proceeding was hardly worthy of any hon. Member. If, on reflection, the hon. Gentleman did not think so, he must not expect a return of courtesy. The hon. Gentleman insinuated that he (Mr. Mundella) was anxious to conceal documents which did not favour his (Mr. Mundella's) own view. He would deal with that part of the case at once. He (Mr. Mundella) thought the Committee would give him credit for as much humanity as the hon. Member would claim for himself. He (Mr. Mundella) had not worked for years to lighten the labours of factory hands and the people with whom he had been associated in his life, that he should now be anxious to grind down little children almost to death's door. Nobody, he was sure, would be indifferent to a matter of that kind; and he could not, when he had overpowering evidence before him, admit the statements of the hon. Member in public, which he was obliged to withdraw. The hon. Member went to a great over-pressure meeting, at which a letter from Dr. Crichton Browne was read, couched in. the most extraordinary terms; and the hon. Member, on his return, asked him (Mr. Mundella) what answer he had given to that letter? Seeing that Dr. Crichton Browne was a Government official, it occurred to him to ask him to what school his letter applied; but he could not mention to him (Mr. Mundella) a single Elementary School which he had ever entered. He said he had in his mind a Class School when he wrote that letter. He stated that this work was very much overdone, and he mentioned a Senior Wrangler who had broken down through excessive work. He referred to Mr. Pitt, one of their Senior Inspectors, and he (Mr. Mundella) wrote to Mr. Pitt. In a short time he received a thick volume, called a letter, from Dr. Crichton Browne. The hon. Member for North Shropshire asked whether it could be laid on the Table, and he described it as an extraordinary document; but he (Mr. Mundella) thought he must class the opinions of the hon. Member with those of Dr. Crichton Browne. He hoped the hon. Member would move for it, and he would give it with pleasure; but he could not produce it as an official document emanating from a Government Department. Dr. Crichton Browne had written extraordinary opinions on education, and he (Mr. Mundella) would give the substance of an extract from a pamphlet which Dr. Crichton Browne had sent him. In that pamphlet he said schoolmasters should be called upon to amend their ways, and note the bodily characteristics of scholars. They should, he said, have a school register, containing details as to the names of boys and girls in the schools, sex, birthplace, nationality of parents, rank and occupation of parents, brothers or sisters alive, height without shoes in inches, weight in indoor costume without shoes in pounds, colour of eyes, colour of hair, girth of chest, circumference and strength of arm, power of sight, breathing capacity, hereditary diseases, previous education, and other matters. But, besides that permanent record, there should be complete information as to the progress of the children, and their conduct at stated intervals; and in addition to that, accurate observations should be taken as to height, weight, and so on, at least once in every two months. And so Dr. Crichton Browne went on with some of the most extraordinary theories. If they went on such a system as that, there would be no grant that they could make that would pay the teachers. They could not conceive a more frightful burden on teachers; and so long as he (Mr. Mundella) was at the Education Department, he was not going to propose an army of Inspectors. He believed that Inspectors were the keystone of their system; but as to increasing their Inspectors unnecessarily, no greater waste of money could be made, and no greater mistake in administration than to adopt those extraordinary proposals; and he thought it hardly worth the while of an official Department to produce such a document as that. He hoped now he had made a statement which was satisfactory.

MR. BULWER

Is that the letter which Dr. Crichton Browne wrote to The Times, and which the right, hon. Gentleman failed to produce?

MR. MUNDELLA

said, the document was one which Dr. Crichton Browne wrote before he visited the schools; and he (Mr. Mundella) read it to show that Dr. Crichton Browne had already formed extraordinary theories, which he felt bound to justify. Now, with respect to the question of over-pressure, that was not the time to go into the whole of that question; but he would say this much— that in the Reports of the ablest of their Inspectors—men who had served many years, fathers of large families, men of observation, who knew as much about education and the health of children as the hon. Member—they said the real cases of over-pressure were the cases of pupil teachers; and the hon. Member knew that he and the Society with which he acted were the very persons who remonstrated with him (Mr. Mundella) for reducing the hours of labour of pupil teachers. Did the hon. Member deny that?

MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON

We think that pupil teachers have to go through too severe and too lengthy examinations, and that that is the cruelty which injures their health.

MR. MUNDELLA

said, that was not a very accurate denial. The hon. Member had not denied the statement that he and his Society remonstrated with the Education Department for reducing the hours of work for pupil teachers. A cry was got up by managers, because he (Mr. Mundella) insisted on reducing those hours. With regard to the case mentioned by the noble Lord opposite (Lord Burghley), he thought the circumstances had been hardly accurately explained. There were two schools in Rothwell, which was a place of more than 3,000 inhabitants. For the last 50 years there had been a British School, and there had been a Nonconformist place of worship for 200 years. The Nonconformists kept the school going as long as they could; but, two years ago, the Inspector said the school must be rebuilt. No attempt was made to create a School Board; but the Nonconformists set to work to raise the money for the purpose of rebuilding the school. They could not, however, raise all that was required; and at last they threw up the game, and said they could no longer keep up their school, but they would not send their children to a Church School, but would go to prison first. Were they, then, supplanting a Voluntary School by setting up this school?

MR. BULWER

How about the other school?

MR. MUNDELLA

said, they were not damaging the other school. He had examined the subscriptions for this so-called Grammar School, which had a small endowment, and the whole of the subscriptions came to £9 a-year, and, with one collection a-year, to about £17. All the rest was paid out of the Government grant. They said they had 200 children; but, if that was so, that would show that the Nonconformist children were in. a majority; and that, he thought, was another strong reason why it would be impossible to compel all the children to go into the Church School. There was another reason. In this parish school they had no playground, and the children were turned out into the street to play; but the regulations forbade any school to be built without a playground. If they were to carry out the Act in that way, did hon. Members think that would last long? Would it be in the interest of the Church itself and of Church Schools, if they were to attempt to monopolize the whole of the education at a place like Rothwell? If there had been illegality, it had been an illegality going on for the last 14 years, and on an extensive scale. The noble Lord made one mistake. He said the School Board had declined to build a school because there was no deficiency. How was it that one gentleman alone supplied the deficiency, and did not come to the Education Department? They had actually acknowledged the deficiency by building Church Schools. All he could say was, that when the deputation came from Willesden, they admitted that the School Board had done a great deal of good, and that the number in attendance had increased enormously. What more could they want? There was a statement now from that place that a school was badly wanted there, and if it was not supplied it would be necessary for the Department to proceed to extremities. The Education Act could not be worked unless this discretion vested in the Department was duly exercised, and as long as he was at the head of the Education Office he should carry out his duties fearlessly. He had never yielded to political pressure on one side or the other; he had always administered the Education Act as though there were no such things as denominational politics. In the administration of the Education Act there was no need for favouring either one side or the other. As to the Instructions given to the Inspectors, the Revised Rules would meet all reasonable wishes in this regard. There was no secrecy with regard to the Instructions as to the way in which the Act should be administered. There had been in the past no regular system with regard to the issuing of the Instructions, and very often the Instructions had lapsed, or had become forgotten. Now, however, it was intended year by year that the Instructions should be issued as soon after the Code as possible, and that the Instructions should contain in themselves all that applied to the inspection of schools. He was sure the Instructions he should have to place before the Committee would meet with the consent of all parties. Before he sat down he should like to say a word or two with regard to what had fallen from the hon. Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Talbot) with regard to the Inspectors. The hon. Gentleman had complained of an Inspector in Lincolnshire, who had, it was alleged, imperfectly discharged his duties. Well, the present Government had not appointed that Inspector. They had never appointed any University men, and never since they had been in Office had they appointed a single unqualified or untrained Inspec- tor. There had only been one University man appointed, and in that case it had been a necessity.

MR. J. G. TALBOT

said, he must not be understood as objecting to the appointment of University men generally. What he protested against was the appointment of men fresh from the Universities, who had no experience of Elementary Schools.

MR. MUNDELLA

said, he could quite understand the hon. Gentleman taking that view; but, as he had said, only one outside man had been appointed, and in that case the appointment had been a necessity, as they had required a man who could speak the Welsh language. But from that time to this every vacancy had been filled up from the class of Sub-Inspectors—that was to say, from a class of well-qualified and well-trained men, who had served from 10 to 20 years as Inspectors' Assistants, and he had great pleasure in paying that they had discharged their duties admirably, and that he had no complaint to make of them, or less complaint to make than he had of any other branch of the Education Department. The Department was working so that all Inspectors could discharge their duties with fairness, kindness, moderation, and discretion; and if they did not do that, and if their action was brought before the Department, the Department could immediately put its finger on the men who were administering the grants too severely, because they had constant Returns showing what was done in connection with the Inspectors. There would be an opportunity given to hon. Members of knowing every change which took place in the practice of the Department, and, therefore, it would be admitted that an improvement had been made; and he hoped that in the future neither a man fresh from an University, nor a schoolmaster, nor any man would ever be appointed to go into a school for the purpose of inspection, until he had been thoroughly trained and qualified for his work. No man could inflict more misery on his fellow-creatures than an Inspector who was appointed for life, who was unfit for his work, and whom they could not discharge because there was no moral disability. During the last four years he had had a great deal of experience in dealing with men who never ought to have been appointed, and who were totally unfit for the work with which they were charged. His last words would be with regard to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard), who made a demand for an increase of 4s. per head in the case of Voluntary Schools, which had been referred to on that (the Ministerial) side of the House.

An hon. MEMBER: It should be given all round.

MR. MUNDELLA

said, that if the voluntary system was to be continued, some sacrifice must be made by its advocates in order to keep it alive. They could not say that they would give private individuals a sufficient endowment to enable them to carry on their educational institutions, and that they should take nothing out of their own purses for the purpose. He wished to know how far this 4s. per head was to be granted—where they were to draw the line? There were hundreds of schools the circumstances of which varied very materially. Some were 1s. short, some 2s.; what, then, did they mean by giving a uniform sum of 4s. per head? Taking the Wesleyan Schools all round, he believed the contribution had reached to nearly 2s.; and at the rate of progress which had characterized these schools for some time past, it would soon be nothing at all, because every year they were earning more money; and he wished to point out to hon. Gentlemen opposite that in the year 1877 the contribution per head for all children in the schools over 80 was £3. What were they to-day? They had been steadily falling until they were now 6s. 8¾ d., or 2s. a-head less for every child than under the late Government, showing a considerable increase in the Government grant. That increase in the grant would go on, and he (Mr. Mundella) should be very glad if it did. But do not let them say that they thought it was a vital question for English religious teaching that the children should be trained in Denominational Schools, and then say they would not put their hands in their pockets to support them. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen cried "Oh!" but let him remind them that the whole amount of the voluntary subscription was only £700,000 a-year, while they sent out of the country every year £1,100,000 or £1,200,000 to pay for missions to the Heathen. How could they, when sending such an enormous amount out of the country, grudge £700,000 for the Christianizing of their own children? He maintained that with such grants as they now had all they really had to do was to increase the quality of the work and the average of the attendance; and he could only say that hon. Gentlemen who were always crying out about overpressure, and about too much education, were not going the right way to lighten the burdens of the voluntary subscribers to the Voluntary Schools. They were doing their very best to increase these burdens; because the more they disinclined the parent to send his child to school the more burden they placed on the back of the teacher, and the more burden they placed on their own back. He was sorry to have kept the Committee so long. [An hon. MEMBER: How about the loans?] An hon. Member behind had reminded him of the loans. On that question it was not for him to give an opinion, as he could not associate himself with the Treasury. It was not in his power to give a bold and generous answer to the appeal. The matter was regulated by an Act brought in by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and if it was to be repealed and another arrangement made it must be by the Treasury. So far as he was concerned, he should be going a great deal beyond his functions if he were to give an opinion on the subject; and he might not be doing anything to ingratiate himself in the good opinion of the Treasury if he were to give a promise to reduce the interest or extend the term of loans. He should be glad to see loans put on the best possible terms. Further, even under the present arrangements he understood that a great many School Boards fought for the money of the Treasury. If, however, they did not go to the Treasury, but went into the open market to get money on the best terms they could, and if they were dissatisfied with that system, he should recommend them to go to the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and as he was not an ungenerous or an inconsiderate person, as some of his hon. Friends had suggested, the result of applying to him might be very satis- factory. He hoped now the Committee would allow him to take the Votes, at least for Education and the Science and Art Department.

MR. WARTON (who on rising was received with some marks of disapprobation)

said, hon. Gentlemen seemed impatient; but he had waited with a great deal of patience during the whole of the debate, listening to the speeches and endeavouring to form an opinion, upon the points raised. Not long ago, at the dinner hour, he heard a very interesting speech, and took the liberty of showing his approbation by cheering, and was rewarded for his kindness by the remark, "The hon. and learned Member for Bridport cheers me. Have I said anything absurd." He (Mr. Warton) would pass over the good taste and appropriateness of that remark, and would only say this—that if a man should set himself up for a wit, he should always endeavour to make jokes of his own, or if he did condescend to borrow them, at any rate he should take care that they were old ones, and not jokes which he had read a day or two ago in a newspaper report of a speech delivered by the Master of the Rolls at the Mansion House. He (Mr. Warton) had a word or two to say, and an idea or two to express—and sometimes an idea might strike even the humblest mind. He was sorry to see, from the figures on page 335, that there was a tendency on the part of School Boards towards irreligion. The right hon. Gentleman wished to be even between all parties, and fair to all, and he had addressed himself very much with regard to his administration; but he (Mr. Warton) must say that if they looked at the figures, they would find them rather alarming. What did they find? Why, without any wish to say anything unkind of any of his fellow-creatures, he thought he might say that the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church were the two Churches which were most in earnest on the subject of the religious education of their children, for they found that these two were the religions in which there was a decrease of the Vote. The case of the Board Schools, however, was very different, the amount I having increased ten-fold or eleven-fold. The real object of the Act of 1870 was not to supplant, but to supplement the Voluntary Schools; and it seemed to him that the tendency of the Department now was in the wrong direction. It seemed to him that though this debate had been protracted, and though the right hon. Gentleman was anxious to bring this matter to a conclusion, they had not been very well furnished with materials for discussion. They had not had placed before them the letter or Report, which over it was, of Dr. Crichton Browne, or the Reports of the other Inspectors on the subject of over-pressure. They had heard nothing about the pensions given to the teachers under the Motion of the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Brodrick) some time ago— in fact, they had very little material before them at all; and, under the circumstances, he thought it was his duty to move that the Chairman report Progress, and ask leave to sit again.

Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again,"—(Mr. Warton,) put, and negatived.

MR. TOMLINSON

really thought that, considering the position they were in with regard to information on the subject of the Education Vote, it was hardly fair that they should be asked to vote this large sum; and he trusted that, at all events, before they concluded they should have some of the information to which his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Warton) had referred. He (Mr. Tomlinson) wished to make one observation on another point. The right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council had said that he hoped not only to get the Vote for Education, but also the Vote for the Science and Art Department. He (Mr. Tomlinson) felt bound to remark that not one single word had been said on the Science and Art Vote. If they did not postpone the discussion on the important question of education to a time when they would have the means of properly considering it, he hoped that at least the Committee would not be asked to take the Vote for the Science and Art Department without discussion.

Original Question put, and agreed to.

MR. MUNDELLA

said, he did not propose to go beyond the next Vote for Scotland.

MR. R. H. PAGET

said, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not ask them to go on with the Science and Art Vote. It was a very important one, and might give rise to a great deal of discussion. Hon. Gentlemen sneered at the Science and Art Department as though it was not of the slightest importance; but, as a matter of fact, it was of the highest importance. An able Report had been presented to the House with regard to it, and he thought the greatest benefit would result from a full discussion on the subject. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman would be satisfied that evening with having got the first Vote through.

MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON

hoped they would report Progress, believing that the Vote for Elementary Education was sufficient for one night.

MR. MUNDELLA

said, they had been there 10 hours, and they had only got one Vote; and he was obliged to say that the Science and Art Vote being quite exhausted they would be compelled to come for some Supplementary Vote, or make some arrangement of that kind, unless they got the money that night. The Science and Art Vote had never been refused on the first night of these Estimates on other occasions.

MR. DILLWYN

said, he thought the right hon. Gentleman's argument that if the Department did not get the money they would be obliged to ask for a Supplementary Vote was a very bad one. The Science and Art Department required more watching than any other. Therefore, if the hon. Member (Mr. Stanley Leighton) would move the adjournment he would support him.

THE CHAIRMAN

Does the hon. Gentleman move to report Progress?

MR. DILLWYN

Yes; I will do so.

MR. BULWER

begged to second the Motion. He was glad it had come from the other side.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."— (Mr. Dillwyn.)

Motion agreed to.

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow at Two of the clock.

Committee to sit again upon Wednesday.