SECOND READING. (Hansard, 18 February 1891)

§ (5.3.) MR. A. H. DYKE ACLAND (York, W.R., Rotheram)
I believe there is no objection in any part of the House to this Bill being referred to a Select Committee, to which the Bill introduced by the hon. Baronet the Member for Evesham (Sir R. Temple) has already been referred. The two Bills do not largely differ, and it is the desire of a large number of teachers that the whole subject shall be thoroughly threshed out as it only can be by a Select Committee. If the House will allow the Bill a Second Reading, I will move that it be referred to the same Select Committee.

§ (5.5.) MR. KELLY (Camberwell, N.)
It is unnecessary, I think, that the two Bills should be referred to the same Committee. They cover, to some extent, the same ground, but I think the Committee will deal more effectually with the subject in considering the Bill of the hon. Member for Evesham than if this Bill is also referred to it. I regret that I had not the opportunity of offering a few observations when the other Bill was before the House, and however the object of this Bill may be approved I do not think the Second Reading should be passed without discussion. I take it the object is to afford some guarantee that those in whose hands the education of our children is placed shall be duly qualified for their profession. The days 1001 have long passed when it was considered that a man who failed in other trades would make a good coal merchant or schoolmaster. To a great extent parents are now sufficiently interested in the education of their children to take care where they send their children for instruction. This Bill has for its object the affording of a guarantee of a double character. In the first place, the person to be registered under it is to be duly qualified by education for the office of teacher; and, secondly, he is to be further qualified by practice in teaching. Now, I think I can show that whatever advantage there may be in the first part of the guarantee, the second is absolutely impracticable. The House is probably aware that in the Bill of the hon. Baronet the Member for Evesham there is a definite limitation as to the classes of schools and teachers to come under the Bill, that Bill being exclusively confined to schools where intermediate education is carried on under the Act, thus not including such schools as Winchester, Charterhouse, &c But the hon. Member opposite entertains a very different view to that of the hon. Baronet, and no schoolmaster, even at Eton, would be exempt from registration under this Bill. Nobody will be exempt, so far as I understand, but heads of colleges or halls, Professors, Fellows, Readers, Lecturers at colleges; but beyond these the Bill will be applicable to every person engaged in tuition throughout the country. I think the hon. Member might have been content to follow the example of the hon. Baronet, not seeking to include all the schoolmasters in the great schools of England. In the definition of a teacher we find considerable difference between the two Bills. This Bill defines a teacher as any person who forms part of the educational staff of any school. The Bill of the hon. Baronet, in Section 4, provides that it shall apply to elementary schools, not including any school where the fees exceed 9d. a week. Therefore, I take it that, though in some respects the Bills are similar, in other respects they are very different indeed. And now as to the machinery by which the Bill is to be put into operation. I think the House will be amused at the nature of the proposed 1002 Council which is to tyrannise over every person engaged in tuition in the Kingdom. It is a curious thing that in the Council to be formed for carrying out the Bill, while the National Teachers' Association of Ireland is mentioned as nominating two members, Trinity College, Dublin, has not the power to nominate one. While the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have also the right to nominate two members, other Universities have no such right.

§ MR. A. H. DYKE ACLAND
If the hon. Member will allow me to explain: There is no desire to exclude any University; but it is difficult among so many, in the initial stages, to mention the names of all the bodies, and provision is made for additions.

§ MR. KELLY
Yes; I know I have called attention to one part of the proposal for the formation of the Council, but I do not know that the hon. Member's remark applies to Dublin University and other bodies in the transition stage. I should have thought that there are claims that come before those of the conference of head masters and mistresses and others to nominations, and I maintain it would in no sense be a representative Council for those who would be vitally affected by the Bill. Out of 23 members of the Council, there would be only four at all representative of the thousands of schoolmasters over whom the Council would rule. Among the bodies who are to elect members to the Council I find the College of Preceptors. Now, I venture to think I do not improperly describe this body as a private speculation for the purpose of carrying out examinations, and I decline to accept a proposal which places the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge on a par with the College of Preceptors. I do not propose to go through the Bill with criticisms and objections that are not proper to this stage; but I wish to point out that the Bill offers no security for the attainment of that object, which no doubt the promoters have really at heart. Although the main object of the Bill is to offer a guarantee of the efficiency of the teachers registered under it, in reality it offers no guarantee or security 1003 at all. By Clause 22 all persons who have been engaged in teaching for two years may, within three years of the passing of the Bill, be registered as competent teachers for the rest of their lives no matter how incompetent they may be. Then after the expiration of three years a person shall not be qualified for registration until he has attained the age of 21, and holds a certificate of having passed an examination in the theory and practice of education. Well, I do not know that a man will be a better teacher from having been taught something of the theory of education. I have been engaged in tuition, and I speak with knowledge when I say no man can be a successful teacher unless he has three qualifications—sufficient education, the necessary amount of tact, and has had some practice. I do not know where a man can get practice unless he gets a junior form in a school, and I can conceive of no machinery which will turn out hundreds of thousands of teachers every year fully versed in the theory And practice of education. The thing is impossible. I think a number of people are allowed to enter the profession who are unqualified for it; but I am at a loss to know how a certificate of examination in the theory and practice of education will help any one. I should have thought that the first qualification—which is carefully absent—would have been that a man should have taken a degree at one of our Universities. The qualification might have been that no man should become a master unless he had taken honours; but it does seem to me monstrous that a man who has gone to a University and followed a University career should be debarred from taking this position, because he has not satisfied the College of Preceptors by examination in the theory and practice of education. Three years after the passing of this Bill no human being, however high a degree he may have taken in a University, will be able to take up the profession of teaching unless he has this certificate from a body with which the College of Preceptors will have a great deal to do.

§ MR. A. ACLAND
The College of Preceptors will have nothing to do with it. The Bill which refers to the College 1004 of Preceptors is that of the hon. Baronet opposite, which has been referred to a Select Committee.

§ MR. J. R. KELLY
I saw that some unfortunate individuals under the Bill were to be mulcted in £5 fees, and I, therefore, thought that the College of Preceptors would have something to do with the matter. I notice that another qualification is to be "a teaching diploma of Cambridge University." But who knows anything about any such diploma? It is certainly some years since I was at Cambridge, but when I was there I knew nothing about any such diploma. Another qualification is to be a Fellowship or Licentiateship of the College of Preceptors. But what does this really amount to? I am not surprised to find it put alongside a diploma of the University of Cambridge. Though I accept the statement that this is not the Bill of the College of Preceptors, I cannot help thinking that, at any rate, the College of Preceptors saw a draft of the Bill before it was printed. The secret of the Bill is to be found in Clause 28, which provides that every duly qualified applicant till 1893 for registration shall pay a fee of £1, and after that date a fee of £5, and that in the case of any other person applying the fee shall be £3. I would ask if the House can approve of a Bill, one of the main objects of which is to create a great fee-making machine? Does the House know what it means to make every unfortunate man engaged in teaching in this country pay £1? Does the House know how many of these men there are engaged in teaching in the country, and what their circumstances are? If it does, I do not think it will allow these penalties to be inflicted on every poor struggling teacher throughout the United Kingdom. I want to ask what the money is wanted for? Perhaps it is necessary to charge some fee; but on what principle £15,000 or £20,000 is to be screwed out of the sockets ,of some of the most deserving and most hard-working people in the country I am at a loss to imagine. I lave consulted several teachers on the subject of the Bill of the hon. Member 1005 for Evesham, and they declare it to be monstrous that out of their small salaries of £40 or £50 a year they should be compelled to pay £1 for that which they say will do them no good. The registration fee should be a purely nominal one—not more than 5s. at the most. I suppose we shall be told that the Bill is a voluntary one, and that no one will fee called on to pay the £1 unless he chooses to register. Yes; but what will be the position of a teacher if he is not registered? He will be able to teach, but will not be able to recover his fees by law. An unscrupulous parent who has incurred a debt by sending his child to this teacher may refuse to pay, and there will be no means of suing him. In the same way an unscrupulous registered master may employ an unregistered assistant, and, at the end of the term, may refuse to pay him, and the assistant would have no redress. I should like to know on what principle such an outrageous law as that is to be justified? It is all very well for the hon. Member for Rotherham to tell the House that the schoolmasters of the country are in favour of the Bill. I would ask, "When did the schoolmasters of the country see it, and have they expressed an opinion in favour of it?" The Bill of the hon. Member for Evesham is an old Bill, having been before the House Session after Session. The schoolmasters may have had an opportunity of seeing it. But as to this Bill I have been able to bring it before dozens of schoolmasters, and never yet found one who had heard of it before.

§ MR. A. ACLAND
I have received quite lately a communication from the Schoolmasters' Congress, consisting of delegates from all parts of the country. They say they have carefully considered the Bill, and consider its main provisions admirable.

§ MR. J. R. KELLY
I can quite understand that the masters like it. They have nothing to object to in it. It is nothing for a man earning £3,000 or £4,000 a year to pay £1 for registration, and it will be to his interest to support the imposition of fees in order to limit competition.

§ (5.29.) MR. WILLIAM JOHNSTON
rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put," but Mr. SPEAKER withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.