ELEMENTARY EDUCATION [FEE GRANT].

HC Deb 08 June 1891 vol 353 cc1834-919

Considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

(4.5.) THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir W. HART DYKE,) Kent, Dartford

In moving a Resolution which I shall not submit to the House until the conclusion of the remarks which I have to make, it will be my duty to place before the Committee as succinctly and clearly as I can the proposals of the Government for relieving parents from the payment of fees in elementary schools. We have now existing in this country a system of elementary education which is the growth of many years, and which, although perhaps not essentially perfect in itself, or such as to satisfy all notions of educational opinion, yet is doing a vast amount of good. Vast and essential changes have been wrought in the last few years in this system—changes made with the assent of all parties. We have freed our schools from many restrictions which fettered and bound them, and which were injurious, at all events, in this respect—that the taxpayer did not receive the proper return for the money expended by him. Not only has a great advance been made in connection with technical education, which is now an accomplished fact, but we have cast aside the ancient system under which brain and book work was alone tolerated. We have recognised, tardily, it may be, a better and wider application of our educational system, in accordance with which other faculties besides the brain can be cultivated with great resulting benefit to the industrial population, and so to the community at large. Having made these considerable changes, we are all deeply anxious, whatever our individual opinions may be on some points, that these new operations should be brought fully and fairly to the test of time and experience. A grave responsibility rests upon any Government undertaking any such change as we now propose, for it is a matter of primary importance that the change, whatever it be, should disturb the existing educational state of things as little as possible. At the same time, I admit that the change should be real and thorough in its application, and that the proposals should be, as far as human foresight can devise, such as will distribute the grant which we propose equally and fairly between the two descriptions of schools, namely, the Board schools and the voluntary schools of this country. I am fully aware that the position in which I stand is not altogether one of extreme comfort. I allude to this, that it is almost impossible for a man standing in my position to deal with this subject without raking up the ashes of some long-smouldering controversies. Hon. Members, I hope, know me well enough to admit that I would not be so foolish as to introduce one jot or tittle of controversial matter into this Debate. It would be foolish to do so, and would only injure my own case. We are anxious to have, at all events, a peaceful beginning to our proceedings in relation to the forthcoming measure. But the relative positions of Board schools and voluntary schools have recently been the subject of much debate and comment, and I have no doubt that we shall hear much more of the subject in the Debates about to begin. I cannot help noticing that during the past few weeks or months some hon. Members opposite have taken almost a paternal interest in the internal and pecuniary affairs of voluntary schools. Perhaps some of these hon. Members may arrive at such a pitch of enthusiasm that they will themselves offer me a subscription on behalf of these voluntary institutions. During the past two months, at all events, various questions have appeared upon the Notice Paper of this House, like so many stormy petrels, portending, perhaps, an early falling of the political barometer. Most of these questions have dealt with one point, namely, the financial position of the voluntary schools of this country. It is certainly the duty of any Education Minister to acknowledge what the promoters of these voluntary schools have done in the past. When the educational outlook was at its gloomiest and darkest the promoters of this great voluntary system were the pioneers of elementary education. Hon. Members are aware that through the medium of this voluntary system vast sums have been expended in the cause of education. It would be wrong indeed not to recognise that if by the action of this or any other Parliament we were wantonly to break up this voluntary system we should have to face this great inconvenience—that not only would a vast sum of money devoted to a great public object be cast to the winds, but that a very large sum would have to be supplied to replace it. Let me quote a few figures showing what was spent under this voluntary system up to the date in 1882 when the building grants ceased. The sum spent under this pioneer system of education on buildings, teachers' residences, &c., was £14,136,000, a capital which at 4 per cent. would yield an income of £562,000, or, in other words, a subsidy of 5s. a year for every scholar in average attendance in voluntary schools. Having explained this, I should now like to say a word respecting the liability of parents to pay the fee in elementary schools. From the earliest days it has been found that whatever efforts might be made on the part of the parents, such efforts must be largely supplemented, and at the earliest stage the fee paid by the parents was supplemented, not only by endowment, but by voluntary efforts and contributions and by State grants. Then came the great Act of Mr. Forster in 1870, which created something like a revolution in our elementary schools. For the first time under that Act the system of compulsory attendance was adopted, and this compulsory system was confirmed and enforced by succeeding Acts. From 1870 to this date parents among our working classes had this twofold strain placed upon their resources: in the first place, the payment of fees; and, secondly, in many instances, the compulsory loss of the earnings of the labour of their children. Since that date parents had no longer any right to refuse to send their children to school because they could not pay the fees, and managers were not always obliged to consider the circumstances of the parents when fixing the fees. The result is that there have been vast differences in the amount of fees. In many cases parents pay only a half penny a week, in others they pay 3d. or 4d., or even more. Now, what are the reasons to be urged for the change we propose? Here, at all events, I am aware that, with regard to the relief of parents from the payment of fees, I shall be told in various forms that I have changed my mind, and that I am promoting to-day a policy to which I have been previously adverse. I am not inclined to waste much time with regard to this matter. I am aware that these are accusations which are invariably made by hon. Members who conduct mining operations in Hansard, and endeavour to discover how often they can introduce tu quoque arguments. The fact is we have changed our minds; and, so far as I am concerned, I shall never be ashamed—having gone most minutely into this question for some five years— that I have changed my mind. As for these tu quoques, to my mind they have become one of the nuisances of the day, and I should like to see them fumigated by my right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works. There are obvious reasons for the proposals we make. In the first place—1 know it is not universally held, but it has been held for many years by those who advocate this change, that immediately you bring the pressure of compulsion to bear on the parents and that the State has to enforce on them the loss of the earnings of their children's labour, it is only fair that the State should assist the parent in carrying out the compulsory process. There is one other reason which strikes me, and which I believe is of the utmost importance — I allude to the difficulty of enforcing attendance in our schools. It is notorious that in all our towns one of the great difficulties in enforcing attendance in our schools is the payment of fees. It is useless to deny the fact. Any Member who would consult those who are longest engaged in educational efforts will hear of the enormous difficulty of discriminating where compulsion should be brought to bear and where the parents are really suffering the poverty which they plead. And here there is another point to be considered, and that is the question of time. One of the oldest sayings in this country is that time is money. I venture to urge that most of the time spent by school managers and teachers in applying compulsion to the collection of school fees is an enormous loss. This loss is an important point, and is the cause of grave dissatisfaction. But that is not the only loss. The unfortunate parents of non-pauper children who are not able to pay fees have constantly to lose a whole day's work hanging round the precincts of the union, and have to put in the plea for remission in formâ pauperis. To the great mass of the working classes this is very hateful, and, besides, it is a complete drag upon the efficiency of our educational system. It is true enough that School Boards have power to remit those fees, but all hon. Members of any experience must be aware that the difficulty of discriminating cases where payment should be made and the contrary is very great, and here also the question of time enters into the consideration. On these points I shall not dwell longer, but will at once place before the House the proposals we have to make. Her Majesty's Government, taking into consideration the various details which should be connected with such a scheme, have arrived at the decision to which they have come by an exhaustive process. We have endeavoured to try all possible methods before we have arrived at the conclusion which I have now to announce. Our proposal is to relieve parents from the payment of fees in elementary schools. One of the first things which suggested itself was whether we should differentiate the fees or not — that is, whether we should pay all the fees, whether high or low. We found, however, many difficulties and disadvantages in such a course. I will mention one of the difficulties which must be patent to the mind of every practical man. We found the difference of fees so great that it would be impossible to maintain a system whereby one man received 3s. 4d. and another 6s. 8d. Therefore, we came to the conclusion that the only possible plan would be to give a fee of 10s. per head for each scholar in the elementary schools. It has been calculated that this will be nearly equivalent to a 3d. fee. I am not sure that in every school that would be found to be the fact, but approximately it would be so. We propose that every school where on a given date—say the 1st of January, 1891— the fee did not exceed the sum of 10s. per head per child should be a free school.

SIR L. PLAYFAIR (Leeds, S.)

Absolutely?

SIR W. HART DYKE

Yes. My right hon. Friend will observe that I say in a school where the fee did not exceed the 10s. grant. By this calculation we assume that something averaging two-thirds of the elementary schools in England and Wales will become free schools. But that, we believe, will not be pro raid the number of scholars relieved. Now I come to the limitation with regard to this grant. We have had some experience with respect to what has been called the standard of limitation. We have had only a slight experience—the experience of Scotland — to guide us. I have endeavoured to get information on this with regard to Scotland. It has been difficult to get any very conclusive information on the point as yet, but I believe that in many schools the effect of freeing the early standards has been to increase the attendance. As regards the restriction on the upper standards, Her Majesty's Government have no information either to guide or encourage them to make any such distinction. So far as I am concerned, I have always had a strong objection to what is called standard limitation in regard to these schools. To my mind it is opposed not only to all the experience of the past, but, what is a stronger point, it is most strongly opposed to modern educational policy. We find that the chief danger attending the school life of the present day is this—that as our school machinery improves, so our chil- dren pass so quickly out of the standards at an early age, and we find that there is a gap between the age at which they leave school and the chance they have of getting work. We consider that to be most hazardous as regards the future life of the child Beyond that, however, there is the common sense objection to such a course. By placing this limitation on the standard before the eyes of a parent ambitious for the future of his child and anxious to retain him longer in school life, you are placing a fine on him at the very moment when he is-making a noble effort for the future success of the child, and to make him the best possible specimen of a British citizen. There is another suggestion, which has been made from a high educational source—that we should not: have any limit as regards the higher-standards, but that fees should be charged! in the earlier standards of school life. I think such a proposal goes to the very root of our Bill. We are all aware that-one of the main social difficulties we have to deal with, not only in the Metropolis, but in our large towns, is that connected with improvident early marriages. We know the destitution and misery thus-created, and one of the first difficulties connected with this state of things is the attendance of the unfortunate little children at school. Here we should be-bringing pressure to bear on the poorest of our population, and we should still leave the difficulty of dealing with the pauper children if we placed this compulsory condition on the early standards. We have come to the conclusion, therefore, that on the whole it would be far the best course to adopt to have no-standard limitation whatever. But we do propose a limitation in our Bill to this effect—that the grant is to be payable only on behalf of those children of compulsory school age, between the ages-of five and 14 years. We do so for this reason. The whole basis of our proposals is that the introduction of this compulsory power should call for some relief to the parent, and we say that this grant should be restricted to that portion of our population where the compelling power is operative. There is another strong reason. A vast number of those young children below five years of age are sent to the school by the parent as a distinct relief to the parent. It is well known that by sending those little children to school at this early age the parents obtain a good deal of relief at home; they take in work, and attend to their household duties in a manner which would be impossible otherwise. We also propose, in regard to those younger children, to secure by a provision that in no case shall the fee charged exceed 2d. per child. This will make a difference of something like £175,000 in regard to the proposals which we are making. The number of infants on the books under five years is 470,000, the average attendance is 350,000. I now come to one of the most important points in our proposals— the application of this grant to the schools, and how far it should be applied Should we be content to leave each school the choice of refusing this grant or of accepting it, and if they do come under our proposal or elect to refuse the grant, should they proceed on the same basis as they are now doing? I am opening up a subject which Her Majesty's Government consider to be most important as regards the future of our elementary system in this country. We have at this moment every variety of elementary school, and that variety extends largely to the payment of fees. We have fees as high as 9d., and descending in every possible sum down to the free limit. Her Majesty's Government believe that the maintenance of this varied, this elastic system, is of vital importance and moment to the future education of our children. It is true that under our proposals a vast number of parents will be freed from the obligation of paying fees, but we believe it to be of lasting importance to secure within this limit some elastic system such as exists now, rising by degrees up to the highest grade of schools in the country. I do not stand alone on this side of the House in pleading for some such system as this. A speech was delivered at the beginning of the Session by the hon. Member for Flintshire with reference to this question. In it the hon. Member pleaded most strongly for this varied and elastic character in our schools. He said— It will be necessary, if we have free education, to have some kind of classification of children. Already it is felt to be a great grievance among the better portion of our working classes that their children have to associate with those of the most degraded classes. It is complained that, however carefully the children are brought up at home, they have to associate at school with the children of thieves, and contamination spreads through all classes. I do not say that I go so far as this, but I do say that in this country, if we reduce the whole of our elementary system to one dead level, its decadence from that very moment will begin. I should like to call attention to the experience of other countries with regard to free schools. I have here a Report which has been presented to me by Mr. Fitch, one of our head Inspectors of schools, as to what has been the result of a uniform system of free schools in other countries. It is shown that in America, at all events, one of the first results of this universal system has been the establishment of a vast number of private-adventure schools, in which, in proportion to the increase of population, the number of enrolments was larger than in the public schools. This has not been brought about solely by the social reasons indicated by the hon. Member for Flintshire, but largely on religious grounds. I shall avoid introducing a topic so fruitful of controversy as that of the religious question in Our schools; but, at all events, I may urge that there is great danger where you establish one dead level of free schools that a secular system will follow such a result. Mr. Fitch, in his Report, quotes the case of France, and points out that during four years the proportion of privately-educated scholars has increased materially, while the increase in the number of scholars in public schools has been insignificant; in private schools the total increase in 1888 was 60,799; in public schools it was only 7,891. One other sentence I will read— In France, out of 5,544,OO scholars enrolled in the primary schools, no less than 1,160,477, or more than one-fifth, are in private and denominational schools. I quote this experience of other countries, because I think that we ought to pause before we run any risk by the establishment of one dead level in our elementary system. The first consideration that arises is, Ought we to allow managers of schools either to take or to leave this grant, or ought we to extend the grant to all schools? I have had some very strong representations from all parts of the country in regard to this question. One of the strongest representations I have received has been from a leading representative of Wesleyan schools. He stated, without the least reserve, that, under the system whereby all schools were compelled to take or to leave this grant, the Wesleyan schools would be utterly destroyed and obliterated from our educational system.

MR. ILLINGWORTH (Bradford, W.)

Will the right hon. Gentleman give the name of his correspondent?

SIR W. HART DYKE

I think I had better proceed with my remarks. I have no doubt that the name will come out, and the hon. Gentleman must see that be is pressing me unfairly. Her Majesty's Government have come to this conclusion: that the only method by which we can secure the existing state of things, recognising the huge gap which would exist in the position of some of those higher grade schools if we were to adopt the course which I have indicated —we have come to the conclusion that the only measure of security is to allow any school to receive this fee grant of 10s., and to allow a school where fees are charged above the fee grant still to receive the grant, and to receive the balance of fees as well. Of course, in every case this must be a balance of fees received at a certain date before this announcement has been made, and, of course, provision will be made that in no possible case, on the receipt of this fee, shall the fees of the school be raised above the fees charged at a certain date previous to the introduction of this measure. Here it may be noticed that, in regard to the question of guarding against the raising of fees, it was one of the first obligations laid upon the Education Department by the Act of 1870. The definition of an elementary school in this country is a school at which the fee does not exceed 9d.; and therefore we believe that there will be no difficulty whatever, so far as safeguarding the public funds are concerned, in submitting this plan to the direction of the Education Department.

SIR L. PLAYFAIR

Is the balance to be received from the school fees?

SIR W. HART DYKE

Yes; it will work in this way—the 3d. school would become a 2d. fee school. The advan- tage of this is very obvious. There will no doubt be free schools in most districts. In some districts to-day there are low-fee, high-fee, and free schools, and by this proposal we shall be maintaining as near as possible all classes of schools in the position in which they now stand. Where the demand exists there will be free schools, or free places in certain schools. There will also be a gradation of fees as at present. Hon. Members will have seen that we do propose to make some provision for the supply of free school accommodation, and therefore we propose that free places in a school or a free school shall be provided in any locality where such accommodation is demanded. The same machinery which now exists for the supply of ordinary school accommodation will be applicable to this free school accommodation. During certain periods to be named in the Bill, managers of Board and voluntary schools will have opportunity afforded them of making such arrangement as may be necessary for the provision of free school accommodation. It is perfectly obvious that in those schools above the level of the free-school line a process such as this must be a gradual process. How far it would be applied in one locality and neglected in another, will be regulated by the question of supply and demand in each locality. Having gone with considerable minuteness into this matter, I believe that there will be no difficulty in carrying out the system I propose. Amongst the voluntary and higher grade schools in any town or locality there will be no difficulty, by some system of co-operation between them, to give the free places that may be demanded, while still maintaining existing schools substantially as they now are. I am aware that I have been treading on somewhat thorny ground, but I am grateful for the good-natured attention with which I have been listened to. I have only one or two other matters to refer to before I sit down. Some very natural anxiety has been evinced, with regard to the payment of this fee grant as to when it shall be paid. The anxiety is natural, because if the payment were to be deferred until the end of the school year it would seriously embarrass the school account. Therefore, we propose that it shall be paid every three months. With regard to the calculation of the expenditure involved, the Committee has already had the information placed thoroughly at its disposal by the Chancellor of the Exchequer as far as concerns the sources from which it is to come, and I have only further to add that we have made the most careful calculations as regards the amount of the expenditure involved, and I believe that the sum which will be required by the scheme which I have detailed to the Committee will be rather under than over the sum indicated by my right hon. Friend. I will conclude by placing before the Committee a slight summary of our position. We propose to offer to every school 10s. on the average attendance of all its children between five and 14 years of age. As regards such children, schools will become wholly free or will continue to charge a fee reduced by the amount of the grant, according as the amount of fees at present charged in them does, or does not, exceed the sum of 10s. When a school has become free it will remain free, or where a fee is charged it will remain unaltered, unless a change is required for the educational benefit of the locality. We propose to require that wherever it is necessary public school accommodation shall be provided without payment of any fee, but in order that this may be provided with a minimum of friction, we propose to take no steps for its compulsory supply for a period from the commencement of the Act. This term of grace will enable school districts to make their arrangements for the provision of free accommodation where necessary. These are the proposals which I have had the honour to lay before the Committee. For myself I do hope and believe that the result of them will prove a great boon to the masses of this country, while they will maintain to the very utmost our present efficient system of elementary education, and will promote generally our educational system throughout the country. I beg to move the formal Resolution.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to he provided by Parliament, of a Fee Grant in aid of the cost of Elementary Education in England and Wales, and to make further provision with regard to Education in Public Elementary Schools."—

(4.57.) MR. A. H. DYKE ACLAND (York, W.R., Rotherham)

There was one very remarkable fact in relation to the right hon. Gentleman's speech. The right hon. Gentleman has hardly said anything of what was to be done in the way of educational improvement in return for this gigantic gift to the parents. Neither has the right hon. Gentleman said anything about improved organisation of education in the country districts, or about the parents being compelled to keep their children at school a little longer. The right hon. Gentleman, moreover, has not stated whether the schools under the 10s. fee, which will receive large endowments, are to be asked to extend their educational machinery. In the case of schools in rural parishes, where perhaps the total fees come to £25, are the managers of such schools to receive a clear gift of £50 beyond the amount of the fees, and to be asked for no improvement in the efficiency of the schools? Will the grant simply go to wipe out so much of the voluntary subscriptions? If that is the case throughout the rural schools in England and Wales, I think it will not give satisfaction. I hope that when the large sum now proposed is given to the penny fee schools it will be used to improve their efficiency, and not merely to relieve the subscribers. I see no ground for this whatever, and I hope that when we have the Bill in our hands we shall find that provision is made for giving the benefit to the children in improved schools. There are some schools in which such a grant will wipe out the whole of the voluntary subscriptions, and give the managers something in their pockets. When we are giving £2,000,000 at one blow—the largest sum ever given in this country to education—we ought to see that it is given in the interest of increased educational efficiency. Then there is the question of the age of the child ren for leaving school—a question which is being raised this Session in connection with half-timers. If there ever was an opportunity of bringing up the English standard to something near the Continental standard we have it now, and if it is lost we may never have such an opportunity again. What are we saying to the parents? Why, we are saying this, "All of you who are sending your children to voluntary schools, no matter how well you can afford to do so, shall receive 10s. a year;" and whilst we are saying that, surely we may say to the Boards of Guardians, and those other authorities who maintain such wretchedly low standards of education and attendance, "You must in view of this great boon to the parents keep the children a little longer at school." But not one word on that subject have we heard from the right hon. Gentleman. I venture to prophesy that the proposed system for keeping the high-fee schools going by allowing a school with a 5d. fee to charge 2d. will not last very long. What are these high-feed schools (which are mainly in our great towns) which we are going to protect and preserve? They have high fees because they have very small voluntary subscriptions, and the Government want to preserve this state of things in spite of the recommendations of true educationists like the Bishop of London, who said, and rightly said, on the Commission— Where you give a Government grant to a voluntary school let there be an adequate quid pro qua to keep up the voluntary system. If this Parliamentary grant were to be given with the object of making the schools really well endowed and adequately equipped, there would be some argument for it, but there are some town schools where the voluntary subscriptions' are far lower than in the case of the poor country schools. Such schools, I maintain, do not deserve a privilege of this kind, and should not be allowed to go in with the others and sweep away the Vote. There are many voluntary schools in our towns where 4d. and fed. fees are charged, where neither on the ground of the position of the parents, nor for any other reason should such charges be made—where the parents are as poor as those in districts were only 1d. fee is charged. I think there will be a claim for more equal treatment in this matter when the question comes to be looked into. But while these are grave matters for criticism, I think we are all glad to know that with the exception of children below five years of age there is no check to children going as high as they can. We are glad that the lesson which has been learned in Scotland has been really learned here, and that perhaps the fees will be relieved right up to the top of the school. We have not heard a word as to control going along with the payment of fees. What kind of influence or control do the Government propose to give to the parents? At present, at any rate, through the payment of the fees a parent has some kind of reasonable relation towards the managers of the schools, but under the Government proposal it is possible that there will be managers who will not represent the wishes of the people at all. We ought to look at the matter from the point of view of the weakest link of the chain, and this we shall not do unless we deal with this point. We must take cases like the case of many rural parishes in Wales, and ask how the thing will work—in districts where, perhaps, 50 or 60, or 80, or 90 per cent. of the parents are entirely unrepresented by the managers of these schools. You are going to deprive the Nonconformists of the control of the schools—or, at all events, to hand over the whole of the money to people who do not represent them in any way whatever. I do not think the Principality of Wales will be satisfied with that proposal, or that Liberals of any sort or kind will be able to accept that principle. In a parish I know very well there are two denominational schools, under the management of one clergyman according to the deed, but where they have managed to allow a voluntary Committee (with the consent of the clergyman) to work them—a Committee composed entirely of Nonconformists. That is an arrangement which has worked well, and which has given satisfaction to the clergyman himself But what will be the effect of the present proposal? The fees are 1d.,and the total amount received in the parish from this source is £20. According to this Bill there will be a grant of £60— £20 in lieu of fees, and £40 to be handed over, not to the Nonconformist parents who are paying the. fees, or to the Nonconformist members of the Committee of Management, but to the clergyman, who has the sole local management of the school, and who does not represent one-tenth of the population. No one will say that such a provision is fair, and I hope the Government will not forget that in carrying out their proposals they must not do so in such a, way as to create a sense of injustice. If they do they certainly will find a great deal of discontent. I wish the Government could have brought in the Bill side by side with a measure for District and Parish Councils, as that would have given us an opportunity of reorganising our rural schools in connection with this enormous gift. Depend upon it, you will never get the children of our rural schools educated in the higher subjects as they ought to be, until we have the means of thoroughly organising the schools. We must have proper organisation before we can get proper education. I believe that in some districts there is a sincere desire on the part of the people to realise their duties as citizens, and the example of the Colonies and the United States is in favour of giving the people an interest in the matter of education. The villages -are waking up, and there is no question on which they might be trusted more than that of the organisation and management of schools. I fear, however, that great opportunities has been sacrificed to the General Election which is rapidly approaching. We were told last year that there was so much important business to be done that the House could not deal with the education question, but I hold that if it had been discussed then we could have given better attention to it than we can now, at the fag end of a Session, and on the eve of a General Election.

(5.12.) MR. HOWORTH (Salford, S.)

I wish to trespass on the patience of the House for a short time, while I put before it some reasons why I and some others, perhaps only a few, on this side, and a large number of persons outside, cannot receive with a very hearty welcome the proposals of the Government. Before I address myself more immediately to the question before the House, I must say that there was one statement in the speech to which we have just listened which I felt very much disposed to echo. I think it a misfortune that on these occasions we should have such very great difficulty in getting to know what the proposal is likely to be which is going to be put before this House. We are all trustees for large numbers of helpless people, and if a great change affecting them is going to be proposed by the Government, it ought not to be made in the shape of a surprise. I cannot help thinking that the inconvenience which was felt very much indeed some years ago on the other side of the House when a similar policy was adopted, has been felt in the present case, when all those who have a special knowledge of these educational questions have been kept absolutely in the dark as to the principles and provisions of this most important measure. There are two sets of Members on this side of the House who fail to find very much consolation in a measure of this kind. There are some who feel strongly that with the tremendous increase of population, the congestion of the population in the big towns, and the enormous increase in the classes who have neither thrift nor prudence, it is dangerous to loosen any of those obligations which make men rely upon themselves, and which put a personal responsibility upon them. We may be right or we may be wrong, but we feel that a great deal that has made this country strong and famous has been due to the fact that its individuals have had great personal initiative, and have been capable of being intrusted with great responsibilities. We dread very much indeed the supplementing and supplanting of this individual initiative by the corporate initiative of the community. We cannot help feeling that its effect "will be to make the community a great deal more invertebrate. Another set of men on this side of the House are in doubt and difficulty as to the proposal of the Government, but on an entirely different ground. With them it is entirely a matter whether schools under denominational management should remain under that management or not, or whether we should loosen or weaken the denominational influence in the great mass of the elementary schools of this country. That is not a position which seems to me to be of equal importance to the former. It is the Statute Book which to a very large portion of the community limits their duties and prescribes their obligations, and when once we insert a provision that in future a man shall not be held responsible for the education of his children, we shall at the same time have taught a new and a very important and very wide-reaching lesson, which to some of us does not seem to have great pro- mise about it. That being so, we feel that some very potent and real reasons should be given why a proposal to loosen this highly moral teaching should proceed from these Benches. Some of us have held all our lives the views which the majority of the Members on this side of the House held at the last election. We hold these views still, and we fail to find in the explanations which have hitherto been made public, any sufficient reason for a change so violent, so complete, upon a matter of such vital moment to us all. We have been told that the introduction of the principle of compulsion has in some way or other altered the conditions of the problem. But the obligation on a man to educate his children is not one created by law. It is one we share with the animal creation. The beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, in addition to providing food and shelter for their young, set us a magnificent lesson in this respect—that it is part of their instinct to train their young for the struggle of existence. If that be the case with the rest of creation, it assuredly applies with tenfold force to man, whose obligations and whose difficulties in this struggle have been so materially increased by the intervention of science and art. We think that that obligation, which is not created by statute or by law, is an obligation of a very useful character as an educational influence, not merely to the children but to the parents themselves. It seems to some of us that there is no obligation which makes a man so near the ideal he ought to reach, as the obligation which involves him in large sacrifices for the children for whom he is responsible. It seems to us that there is no logical tie of any kind between compulsion and the payment for the education of a child when the parent is able to bear that burden. We are told that we have already conceded the principle, that we are paying so much that it is absurd to haggle about what remains. But there is a great distinction between assisting a man to educate his children and enacting irrevocably and finally that in future in this country it shall not be deemed to be the duty of any man to make sacrifices for the education of his children. What we have always said is that, where a man is not capable of bearing the burden, we are prepared to relieve him; and if the present method of relief imposes some kind of degradation, it was not imposed by Members sitting on this side of the House, and I and my friends wish that some other process should be devised by which the same end can be secured. At whose expense is this tremendous experiment going to be made? I was speaking a few days ago to some poor young clerks who are my neighbours in the north of England. These young men, who are married and have children, said to me, "We will not, and cannot, see our way to sending our children to the board schools in Manchester for many reasons "—some of which were most creditable to them. They said, "Is. it not a hardship and a wrong that we, whose means are only barely sufficient to keep ourselves and our children going, should have to make great sacrifices to send the children to schools where they will be taught in rather a higher standard than in the Board schools, and that, at the same time, we should be called upon to pay for the education of the children of our neighbours, many of whom have larger wages, and have not half the expenses we have?" It is very easy to think we are going to impose a burden on the rich for the relief of the poor. That is not the case at all. The great mass of those who will have to bear the burden, whether they pay it in rates or taxes, are men of the lower middle class, who have to educate their own children, and, at the same time, bear the tremendous burden of paying for the education of the children of their neighbours who are as well off, or a good deal better off. We are not dealing with a measure that has no great dramatic interest about it, and which is not likely to excite a great deal of dramatic clamour about the country. We are, however, dealing with a measure which is going to revolutionise practice and theory in every cottage in this country. We ought, therefore, to be very careful, and more than careful, at a time when, as the Census proves the population is increasing at a most appalling rate, and increasing especially in its most thriftless elements, that the people shall not have put before them by Parliament a fresh lesson that a man may marry as early as he likes, and bring as many children into the world as he likes, and that this great grandmother the State is going to relieve him of one burden after another, and take away from him every motive and inducement to be thrifty. There was an appalling set of tables published the other day in one of the London papers, about the age at which the different classes in the community marry. It certainly seemed to me that the result of an examination of those tables was to show that among very large classes in our towns the notion has got abroad that the burdens of marriage are likely to be undertaken so readily and greedily by the State, that a man has no longer any inducement to be either careful or thrifty in that regard. I cannot help thinking that we are trying an experiment because it happens to be a popular experiment. In my reading of history I have always found that when politics have been converted into a public auction, there has always been a party in the country prepared to shout "guineas," when the party on the other side have only said "sovereigns." If you are competing for mere popularity with the great classes of indigent and thriftless poor, you are not able to compete with hon. Members opposite, who will always be prepared to outbid any possible offer you may make. If this change were demanded by large portions of the community, or if there were any demand for it among those who are most interested in education, and have the most knowledge of the subject— schoolmasters and the great body of permanent officials connected with the education of the country—I could understand the change being pressed through the House, and look forward to it with some degree of hope. But not only do we find nearly all those classes taking the other side, but not many years ago a Royal Commission, appointed by the Government itself, and containing some of the ablest and most experienced men in the country in regard to educational matters, reported forcibly and emphatically against free education, on the ground that it is likely to be pernicious in its practice. How does the principle of free education work in practice? It is of supreme importance that we should have a large body of material on which to base our conclusion. Judging, from such books and evidence as we have access to, it is shown to be a failure in America. As the result of free education there, it has been found that the attendance at school is very much less than in England—in the proportion of 3 to 5—and is still rapidly falling, while in some States it is falling to an appalling extent. As to France, a French statesman not many weeks ago stated that the subject in that country had become one of very serious trouble to those interested in education. It has led to an enormous increase of private adventure schools, where there are no means of obtaining thorough efficiency, and where a form of teaching is carried on which we do not wish to see developed and encouraged in this country. But this must be the result if we try by some fantastic scheme to reduce all the education in this country to one common level, to one common system of teaching, and to compel all the strata of society in our large towns to mix their little ones in the same schools, and, irrespective of their home surroundings and their habits, to form a homogeneous mass. It will lead to all forms of illicit teaching, to dame schools, and private adventure schools, where there is no Government Inspection, and where those standards of education which we all wish to see maintained will not be observed. I take this ground because I want to see that education shall at all hazards be maintained as high as possible, and shall not be degraded to a lower level. In Scotland, as I have been told by many school managers, while the attendance of the lower grade children has been increased, that of the higher grade children has diminished very considerably by the fixing, of a sort of ideal limit by the Government itself, which is interpreted not as the low-water mark, but the high-water mark of education which the poor are to have before them. I have been told by a German of high authority in matters of education, that in Germany, and especially in that part of the country where the standard of education is exceptionally high—Wurtemberg—free education has been resisted even for the lowest classes of the community, in the belief that it weakens the interest of the parents in the welfare of his children. It seems to me, therefore, that on empirical as well as on a priori grounds we must arrive at the same conclusion— that the system of free education is likely to work mischief rather than good. It is likely to destroy the sense of personal responsibility of parents, and to invade those family duties which have always been held to be sacred and obligatory upon us. Hence I and other hon. Members are here to say that we dislike the proposals of the Government, that we are as much opposed to them now as when we denounced them to the constituencies in seeking election. Holding the views I do, I have felt bound to explain why I and others who think with me cannot look very cheerfully on the proposed change, and why I think it is not likely to be of any great advantage to the community. I have avoided any discussion of matters of detail, because it will be impossible satisfactorily to go into them until we have the Bill before us, and therefore I have confined myself on general principles to a protest against the measure.

(5.45.) MR. MUNDELLA (Sheffield, Brightside)

The hon. Member for Salford is always listened to with respect, because we all recognise in.him great sincerity and courage; but I am bound to say that the speech he has just made is as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." It is quite too late for the hon. Member now to make any protest in regard to free education. Even the limitations which the right hon. Gentleman has proposed in the Bill carry, I believe, the seeds of death in them, and must soon be swept away; and after the speech we have heard this day, I am quite satisfied that we are within measurable distance of universal free education. The time is not far distant when all schools must be free. I rose to ask for some information on certain points rather than to indulge in general criticism at this time. I was much struck with the proposal that an average fee of 10s. should be paid to all schools, and that it would be compulsory.

SIR W. HART DYKE

I did not say compulsorily. I said it would be proffered to all schools.

MR. MUNDELLA

Then schools under 10s. will receive 10s. Whatever the present fees may be, that will amount in many instances to a pretty large endowment to existing schools, and will absolve them from any local rate. That is really a considerable grant to those benevolent and patriotic persons who now maintain voluntary schools at a low rate. The schools above 10s., as I understand my right hon. Friend, will have 10s. offered to them, and they may charge any balance of fees over the 10s. I put it to my right hon. Friend, What will be the effect of that? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham has said that school fees in Birmingham are an odious and oppressive tax. But what will happen? Where the tax has been lightened there will be the largest grant, and where the tax is most oppressive there the oppressive tax will be continued. In Lancashire the fees are very high and the schools very poor and bad. At Preston the fees are 19s. 10d. a head, at Stockport 19s. 1d., at Bury 17s.; in fact, throughout Lancashire and Cheshire the fees range from 12s. to 19s. per head. In Birmingham, on the other hand, the children have the advantage of a splendid education, far better than anything given in any town in Lancashire, for 5s. 7d. a head. I want to know how the people of Stockport, Preston, and other such places will like to pay 9s. a head in addition to the grant of 10s. It seems to me impossible to maintain the distinctions proposed.

SIR W. HART DYKE

Any body of parents demanding free education can have it supplied.

MR. MUNDELLA

That is what I am coming to. The right hon. Gentleman said that any persons desiring free education can have it supplied. Suppose the labourers whose children go to a rural school demand free education for them, will that free education be supplied? And, if supplied, how will it be supplied and by whom? What does the right hon. Gentleman intend to do in such cases? Does he intend to set up School Boards in such districts, with free School Board schools? I would also like to ask the right hon. Gentleman what he means by maintaining the higher grade schools. There are, I believe, less than 100 higher grade elementary schools, which give a certain amount of technical education, and go somewhat beyond the fullest extent of the curriculum of the Code. But there are large numbers of schools in England that are not high grade schools, and which charge high fees. The quality does not depend upon the fee, and the rea- son why the children attend such schools is that they have no alternative. Where there is no School Board the fees are fixed by the managers, and the Education Department has no right to interfere so long as the fees are under 9d. The right hon. Gentleman proposes to allow all excess over 10s. to be paid without requiring any improvement in education, without making provision for any sort of control or representation, and without doing anything to raise the quality of the schools or the age of the children attending them. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to America as an illustration. I should have thought he would have done better to refer to Matthew Arnold's last Report. The reason why the average attendance in American schools is not high is because, except in one or two States, there is no compulsion, and even where there is compulsory attendance it is very laxly enforced. With respect to the state of things in France, the position of Government schools there is due to their being compulsorily secular. They are called irreligious schools; but there are no irreligious schools in England. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman how he is going to maintain a high rate of fees in one district against free education in another? I welcome this first effort at free education, and hail it gladly, because it means free education for all our schools, and is the first step in the direction of a really national system of free education; and I am sure we all feel indebted to the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council for having performed his task, as he always does, with the greatest courtesy and diligence. I only hope that his successor in office will be in a position to propose the total abolition of fees in every school in England.

(5.58.) SIR R. TEMPLE (Worcester, Evesham)

I will, on this preliminary occasion, only touch on the topics of this Debate so far as it has gone, reserving my general opinion until the Second Reading of the Bill. I am anxious to declare my entire concurrence with all that has fallen from my hon. Friend the Member for Salford regarding the principle of this measure. I share with him his opinions as to the obligation on a parent to pay for the education of his children, and I participate in his regret that this measure, which establishes a certain sort of socialism as against the good old English individualism, should have been brought in on this side of the House. I also desire to endorse what my hon. Friend has said as to the unfairness of making parents who are poor ratepayers pay for the free education of the children of their neighbours better off than themselves. Then the greater part of the speech of the hon. Member for Rotherham was devoted to showing that the Government ought to have weighted their Bill with all manner of conditions in regard to extending the age of compulsion, general organisation, imposing fresh obligations on managers, and other matters. But is it reasonable to expect Her Majesty's Government to enter into these subjects under the circumstances? If they had thus extended the scope of the Bill, we might bid farewell to all hope of carrying it, not only this Session, but during the present Parliament. The hon. Member quoted the Bishop of London, to the effect that voluntary schools ought not to receive State assistance unless they obtain an equivalent amount of support from private subscriptions. But I argue that such schools have deserved well of the State, however small their private subscriptions may be. By their fees and their organisation they have prevented their scholars from causing expense to the ratepayers. This alone is a great service. The hon. Member seemed to argue that the onus rested on the voluntary schools to prove their justification for existence. But these schools have amply afforded such justification by the excellence of their work, which they have done as well as the Board schools, and further they have economised the national resources. They ought to be maintained, unless it can be shown that Board schools do the work better, and at less cost to the State. But I say that, instead of increasing the burden of the State for education, the voluntary schools lighten that burden. I now turn to the lucid and interesting statement of my right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council. He gives, in his prefatory remarks, the reasons why within the last few years he has changed his opinion regarding the fee system, which he can no longer maintain. I have not changed my opinion. It has always been my view, which experience during these same years has more and more confirmed, that the fee system ought to be maintained. A good deal has been said as to the system of collecting fees being vexatious. But that is the fault of the Education Department, and if the system is at fault it ought to be altered. Such alteration has been made in London. Again, it is said that with fees the average attendance falls of. The very opposite has been the experience of the London School Board. Together with a lax collection of fees the average attendance falls off. The right hon. Gentleman the Vice President has been complimented on the simplicity of his proposals. I fear it will be found that they are a little too simple. This 10s. grant will, I think, be found too much in some cases and too little in others. I should have liked to see a greater provision made for differentiation in the treatment of different cases. No doubt this grant will be a great boon to the poorer voluntary schools, and in this respect the proposals of my right hon. Friend are well worthy of consideration. I desire to express my concurrence in the proposal to restrict the abolition of fees to the compulsory ages, and also to provide that such abolition should apply equally to all the standards. I do not know why it has been said that in this respect we rely on the lesson learned from Scotland. It has been thoroughly understood by English educationists that to remit fees from the lower standards, and not carry the remission throughout the higher standards in elementary schools, is to put a premium on the humbler education as against the better education, and discourage children, poor in condition but endowed with ability, from passing onwards to those studies which may help them to rise in life.

(6.15.) MR. SYDNEY BUXTON (Tower Hamlets, Poplar)

It is not necessary to follow the hon. Baronet through his argument; he and the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Howorth) are as two political Mrs. Partingtons, trundling their mops to keep back these free school waves. I am bound to say that the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President was, to many of us on this side, a great disappointment. His speech was clear, and we listened to it with great interest. As he began we thought we saw foreshadowed an universal system of free schools, and I think hon. Members on the other side had the same impression, for while we cheered they were ominously silent. But as the speech proceeded, I am sorry to-say the plan of the Government showed certain limitations to the principle of free schools to which great objection will be taken by many hon. Members on this side. We were gratified to find that not only the lower standards were to be free. There is one limitatian I hope will be swept away in Committee on the Bill, the proposal to force parents to pay fees for all children over 14 years of age. That limitation will affect some 40,000 children, and it will be greatly to-their disadvantage if the parents withdraw them from school in consequence of the saving policy of the Government. It is but a small amount that will be saved in comparison to the great loss to the children. As to the question of infants under five, I think there is something to be said for the right hon. Gentleman's proposal In what the hon. Baronet the Member for Evesham has spoken of as an objection, the simplicity of the Bill, I see a great advantage. In my opinion, the chief merit of the plan of the right hon. Gentleman is that it will pave the way for the action of a future Government that may desire to-establish completely free schools throughout the country. I am bound to say that there is a most objectionable feature in the proposal, what I may call the "fining down" of fees. As I understand, the proposal is to pay 10s. towards compensation for compulsion, but where the fees-are beyond that amount they may continue to be charged. The objection to the fining down of fees in schools charging above 3d. is that if the plan were adopted the compulsory system would be continued, and the fee system as well. I hold that if there is compulsion the schools ought to be free. I understand that free places are to be provided in schools when a certain number of parents demand that there shall be such places. But who is going to pay for the education of those who occupy these places? Is the Government going to give a large grant, or will the school managers provide the money? The plan of having free places in a school is by no means the same thing as providing a free school. I regret much that the Vice President should have said that a distinction of classes is desirable in our elementary schools. I hold quite the contrary view, believing that a mixture of classes is a very good thing. In the London Board schools visitors are often astonished at the good appearance and behaviour of the children. There is a spirit of emulation amongst them, and the worst class endeavour to behave as well as the better. It is a case of good communications improving bad manners. I understand that one of the objects of the right hon. Gentleman is to get rid of the system of the remission of fees, which has done so much to demoralise parents; but the right hon. Gentleman will really re-introduce that system, because to give a parent a free place for his child in a school is tantamount to granting him remission in a fee-paying school. We shall endeavour to induce the House to insist that, if any schools are still to be permitted to charge fees, there shall be within the reach of every parent an entirely free school. The right hon. Gentleman has not said a word about the 17s. 6d. limit. Every school is now bound to provide a certain amount of local support as against the Government grant if it exceeds that limit. Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to do away with the limit altogether, and, if not, what does he propose to do? What guarantee does he propose that the grant shall really go to increase the efficiency of the school, and not to relieve the pockets of the subscribers? The best opportunity for raising the question whether there should be popular control over voluntary schools will come when the motion for reading the Bill a second time is made. But I may be allowed to say that I think the country will feel that, in places where any particular denomination has a monopoly of the education in the voluntary schools, it will not be fair or right to increase the sum of money granted to those schools, and at the same time to withhold from the parents all power of control. Although we accept the principle of this Bill—and we accept it with great pleasure and gratification, because it goes a great deal further than many of us expected—in regard to the points on which I have touched, I hope we shall have an opportunity of joining issue with the Government. If we are defeated now, I trust that when the Liberal Party comes into Office, and we know they will at the next election in spite of the bribe you have offered to the electors, they will take the opportunity of dealing with this question from top to bottom, and of freeing our great public elementary schools from all those charges now placed on them.

(6.31) MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.)

I should like to say a few words on this occasion, because I am one of those who take a very strong view on the question of relieving parents from all payment for the education of their children, and one who cannot support a view which I hold to be wrong, and which is not likely to tend in any way in the direction of improving the people socially and educationally. The first question we ought to ask is whether this measure will really improve the education of the country, and it is a very remarkable thing that in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education nothing was said about making our schools more efficient by means of this additional annual grant of £2,000,000 sterling. Nearly all educationalists who are not politicians assert that freeing parents from responsibility in the matter of payment will not tend to improve the education given in the schools, or its effects on the children or their parents. The Education Commissioners, who sat two or three years ago, were almost unanimously of opinion that the freeing of education would not be beneficial. Mr. Fitch, who is one of the Chief, if not the Chief, Inspectors of the Education Department—a man who has devoted his whole life to educational matters, has said that to impose a universal system of free education would be most mischievous. The right hon. Gentleman dwelt at considerable length on the importance of improving the attendance of scholars, and he said the abolition of fees would lead to the more regular attendance of children. The evidence of educationalists is against that contention. Dr. Rigg, for many years the head of the Wesleyan Training College for Teachers, and a man who has done a great deal of educational work, has said— Free education entirely fails to secure regularity in attendance. One witness before the Royal Commission said that— No improvement in the attendance can be traced to a remission of fees. Then, again, the experience of America is clearly opposed to free education improving the attendance of scholars. The attendance of scholars in free schools there is not as good as that in fee-paying schools in England. In the case of ragged schools, too, it was found that it was only by means of bribery and other means that children could be got to attend, except in the most spasmodic manner. Mr. Diggle, the Chairman of the London School Board, has said that in penny schools, the attendance is worse than in any other schools. Another witness before the Commission pointed out that in the case of some promising and flourishing evening schools, which were being carried on successfully when the experiment was tried of making the schools free, the attendance fell away to nothing. Professor Gladstone has written a most excellent letter to the Times on this subject. He is not a politician; he has spent many years on the School Board, and he is of opinion that free education will neither improve attendance, nor educational work, nor the character of the people. I venture to assert that this is not a measure which is promoted with the idea of improving the education of the country, but that there are other motives. Let us look at the matter from the point of view of the social improvement of the people. We are fairly entitled to ask is it reasonable to suppose that this measure will improve the social habits of the people? Sixty-seven per cent. of the parents pay the fees Willingly and gladly. I am sure hon. Members in all quarters of the House will bear me out when I say that people in the poorest rank of life continually speak with pride of having made sacrifices in order to give their children the best education they could. Is it not well that we should encourage amongst our people the idea that in making sacrifices to give their children a good education they are doing what is right and proper? Is this a feeling to be lightly checked or eradicated? We want to improve the thrift, the self-reliance, and self-restraint of the people, and I ask if free education will tend to improve those qualities in the masses of the people. Reference has been made to early marriages. Will this Bill hasten or retard these wretched marriages? By a deputation from Friendly Societies, the other day in this House, we were told that constantly they hear of cases of children who were married at 16. No one will say that this measure will tend to retard people taking upon themselves the responsibilities of matrimony, which we all know is one of the great causes of the difficulties of the poor. In my opinion, this Bill will tend to increase rather than diminish the tendency to marry early. In many ways we are undermining, to a greater and greater extent, the social power of the people, by making them throw their burdens on the State, and encouraging rather than discouraging them in thoughtless disregard of the future consequences of their own actions. Is this socially wise? Again, is it not a fact that the brewers and publicans openly acknowledge that the consequences of the Bill will be a probable improvement in their business? Is this a matter of social satisfaction as a result of abolishing fees in schools? Surely those who are interested in the social improvement of the country must consider these facts with alarm. Let me conclude this branch of the subject with a quotation from Mrs. Fawcett, whose opinion I am sure will command respect on both sides of the House. She says— There are thousands of working men and women who are ready to make any sacrifice to secure education for their children. Hundreds of small economies are practised by the mother who is ambitious to give her boys and girls learning enough for the battle of life. The same motive has probably enabled more fathers to resist the temptation to intemperance than the alliance and all the Temperance Societies put together. It is a serious thing for Parliament to do away with the responsibility of parents for the education of their children, with these facts before it, and with such opinions, which might be multiplied indefinitely if time permitted, pointing so clearly to the danger of the course. The present system is not so extremely hard after all. The State pays three-fourths of the cost of education, and parents who can afford it are only asked to pay one-fourth. Parents who cannot afford to pay are allowed under the present law to have free education. No doubt the system of their having in many cases to apply to the Guardians for exemption is open to objection. This objection can, however, easily be altered without abolishing fees altogether. Surely when poor parents can have free education, and?when parents who can afford fees only pay in those fees one-quarter of the cost of the education given to their children, the system cannot be called hard, but liberal and generous. The effect of this Bill on voluntary schools will, in my judgment, be their destruction. Considering they educated 2,250,000 children, whereas Board schools only educate 1,500,000, this is a most serious matter for reflection. To destroy denominational schools no doubt is the real attraction on the other side of the House to this measure. But the Church of England and some of the leading Dissenting Bodies have been the pioneers of the education of this country. Hon. Members opposite may say that the only motive of the Church of England has been to increase her following. If that is true, it is the greatest compliment that can be paid to the Church of England, because it shows that by improving the education of the people she believes that she will increase the number of her adherents. We have heard that this Bill is to give a fixed amount per head, namely, 10s., and that schools whose fees are more than this may still charge fees, but reduce them by 10s. a year. Thus a 5d. fee will become a 2d. fee. But surely to make a 5d. school a 2d. school is not granting free education. If we are to have free education, let it be free altogether. The present proposition must come to grief. Again, voluntary contributions will be endangered with large additional taxation for education within a very few years. Even if it gets through Committee, and if it is given up the best voluntary schools must lose largely. This Bill is the beginning of a new and permanent additional tax, which is at present equivalent to 1d. in the £1 on the Income Tax, and which will ultimately lead to universal Board schools at a cost four times as great as the sum now asked, and end in the utter destruction of the voluntary schools. Concerning the financial advantages of the proposed Bill let me say a few words. This is most important, for the total cost of education is now about £8,000,000 a year—-a quarter, or about £2,000,000, is paid by fees. If free education is a tremendous boon, and if the people really want it, why not put the cost on the rates?' The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets said that if too great a burden were put upon the rates for that purpose he feared a reaction against education.

MR. SYDNEY BUXTON

Perhaps I may be allowed to state that I gave as one reason that the incidence of the rates is at present unfair.

MR. BARTLEY

The incidence of Imperial taxes is also unfair, and if people really knew and appreciated that they were going to pay for so-called free education, they would not have it. The only difference between rates and Imperial taxation is, that the burden is more obvious to each individual. If the sum required for free education is paid out of Imperial taxes it can only come from alcohol or the Income Tax. I do not think that even the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has not been too friendly to the publican, can contemplate adding anything to the tax on alcohol. Therefore, it practically amounts to this: that we shall require an additional 1d. on the Income Tax in order to carry out this boon. It is possible that 4d. may have to be added to the Income Tax if the voluntary schools are destroyed. Will not this have an enormous influence on the wages of the people? I venture to assert that the real object of all our legislation should be to reduce the taxation of the people and the burdens which press upon them, and so to raise their wages. The policy we ought to pursue, from a social as well as a financial point of view, is to do our utmost to make all the people directly pay the expenses which naturally fall upon them rather than take the more costly course of throwing them upon the State. It must be remembered that for every penny that reaches the Exchequer a considerably larger amount has to be taken from the pockets of the taxpayer. I would ask, is it the fact that the people cannot afford to pay the school rate now as well as they could in 1870? I think that is fairly a question to influence this Debate. Wages are better than they were in 1870. Wealth has been, and is being, more evenly distributed. The price of necessaries is lower; the savings of the people are immensely larger. Whereas in 1870 there were only £17,000,000 in the Post Office Savings Bank, there is at present something like £80,000,000 in those banks. In addition to this, we have the evidence furnished by the accumulations in Building Societies and the Friendly Societies and other means for promoting thrift, and I say at the present time the majority of the people are immensely better off than they were 20 years ago. In 1871 there were 44 paupers in every 1,000 of the inhabitants, whereas at present there are only 23.6 paupers in every 1,000. In other words, the poor rate of this country since the passing of Mr. Forster's Act has declined by nearly one-half, and in London it has decreased by more than one-half, from 48.8 to 21.2 paupers per 1,000 inhabitants. This is largely due to efforts to make people more depend on themselves. This has been of untold value to the happiness and social progress of us all. The question whether people can afford these fees brings forward the subject of alcohol. I am not a fanatic on that subject, and I believe we shall always have a large bill for alcohol. But we spend £140,000,000 a year on alcohol; and if one glass in every 18 were given up, the whole cost of education might be paid for without utilising the rates or taxes at all for that purpose. One glass in every 70 would supply the amount of present fees, or £2,000,000 a year. There is no doubt, as I have said, that the people of this country are as able as they were 20 years ago to pay the school fees. I say it is not the true friend of the working man who tells him he cannot afford to pay the fees; he is rather the friend of the working man who says he should strive to do so, and who tries to make him independent and self-reliant. I must say a word on the question of who is to pay for this abolition of fees. The schools are to be called "free schools." I think that is altogether a misnomer. Some one must pay, and we are robbing Peter to pay Paul. We are going to say to those who now pay the fees of their children while they are at school, and who can afford to do so, that we will relieve them of those fees, but saddle upon them in place of the fees a tax which they will have to pay all their lives, and whether they have children or not. I was talking to a poor working man the other day, and he said he believed in free education, although his children were all grown up, and it would not, therefore, concern him at all. I said, "It does concern you, because we are going to put on a new tax in order that you, for the rest of your life, who have educated your children, shall pay some share of the cost of your neighbour's children's education." This view had not struck him, and he went away a wiser but a sadder man. This is really an essential part of the Government proposal. We are to saddle the thrifty, and therefore the self-reliant, man with a fresh burden in order to relieve the man who has the means, but who is unthrifty and improvident, and who thinks of nothing but himself. I must say I think that when this is understood, the people will not care for the proposal as much as some suppose. When people understand that they are all going to pay their share, the popularity of this measure will very soon go, and the delusion which the word Free inspires will disappear. Of course, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer is going to impose some general tax, individuals, although they pay their share, will not feel it quite as much, or quite realise what they are paying. But what we know is coming is an addition to the Income Tax. I know hon. Gentlemen opposite have a notion that only rich people pay that tax. I find, however, that of those persons who pay Income Tux on Schedule D—that is to say, artizans, tradesmen and professional men—more than half of the entire number, or a quarter of a million heads of families, pay Income Tax on less than £200 a year, and, therefore, if they pay 1d. extra on the difference between £120, and the little more than £150 they earn, they will each have to pay 5s. 2d. a year extra in perpetuity. In other words, persons who earn about £3 10s. a week will contribute no less than £56,000 a year towards an extra, 1d. on the Income Tax for so-called free education. I calculate that the 106,000 heads of families who earn about £5 a week will each pay 10s. 10d., or £59,000 a year; the 45,000 who earn about £7 a week 20s. each, or £45,000 a year; and the 18,400 who earn about £9 a week will pay 37s. 6d. each, or £35,000, so that, altogether, the bottom strata of the middle classes and the top strata of the working classes—that is to say, persons with incomes varying from £3 to £9 a week—will pay a sum of something like £195,000 a year towards free education if an extra 1d. be put on the Income Tax, as practically is now the case, for the surplus this year would have allowed a reduction in the tax bill for free education. If voluntary schools are really done away with and universal Board schools take their place, this increase will become at least three times as great a burden on the rate and taxpayer. One argument for this measure of free education is that the people pay too large a share of taxation, and that this is a plan for making it more equal. I have always asserted that the poor man who uses tobacco and tea and alcohol at present pays too large a share of his earnings in taxation. This Bill will make the condition of things worse by adding to that man's burdens, and I contend that the proper thing would be to re-arrange the incidence of taxation rather than take a course which will increase the general burdens and demoralise the people at the same time. During the last 20 years a great deal has been taken off taxation. We have remitted the taxation on coffee; we have taken £6,000,000 a year off sugar, and £1,500,000 off tea. The Inhabited House Duty has been reduced, and much has been done to make taxation more equal. Why should we not continue in that course if further adjustment is needed? Why has this measure been brought in? There are several motives it is true, and I have no doubt as to what those motives are. But educationally, socially, and financially the measure will not benefit the people. It will saddle the hardworking man with greater taxation. We were once told that there were men who spent 4s. 3 ½d. a week on beer, and 2d. a week on education. Well, by this Bill we are telling them to throw that 2d. a week into their beer money. I say, for all these reasons, that this Bill is a mistake. One of the motives which has led to the introduction of this measure is this: that if the Con- servative Party do not deal with this question the Radical Party will deal with it in a worse way. [Cheers.] Hon Gentlemen cheer that statement. I should like to see them try it. When their Party tried to destroy the voluntary schools in 1870 it utterly failed. Since 1870 millions upon millions of money have been spent on voluntary schools; and any attack on those schools will be resented in every possible way by the great bulk of the country. Another motive for the introduction of the Bill has been put forward by the hon. Member for West Ham in a letter to the Times, in which he states that free education will be a splendid Party cry. If the Conservative Party are to promote measures with a view to catching votes, I think that they are not much better than the right hon. Gentleman who a few years ago set his principles aside in order to secure 70 or 80 Irish votes on the other side. Will it, however, next year, before a General Election, be a popular cry to add 1d. to the Income Tax to pay for the Bill? Hon. Members opposite do not conceal their delight and gratification at this measure; they believe it will tend to destroy the voluntary schools of the country. That is their aim, and one of their means of attacking the Church. I think they are right, and that we are playing into their hands. I venture to warn my own friends on this side of the House that there is a growing discontent on this subject. The clergy object to it; educationalists who are not politicians object to it; social reformers, who are not politicians, object to it; and, lastly, a large number of Conservative Members object to it. Some, no doubt, approve of it, possibly because it will gain the Party a few votes, but those who have devoted some of their time to the work of education know that the measure will damage our position. If one side is to bribe against the other, why do we not bribe in the thorough way and throw in free meals as well? Why not pay a parent so many shillings compensation a week for sending his child to school? After all, the less of the child's services is the crux of the whole question and not merely the school pence. I have always held that there should be a kind of partnership between the parent and the State as regards the cost of education. I hold that a parent should make an effort as well as the State in the matter of education. This measure is, in my opinion, a sad error. It is not needed; it will not improve our educational efficiency; it will relax the sense of family responsibility; it will demoralise our people; it will throw the burden of education on those who can least afford to pay; and, finally, will lead without fail to the destruction of the voluntary schools; and I warn the Conservative Party that in the downfall and destruction of religious schools will come the downfall and destruction of the Constitutional Party.

(7.7.) SIR W. HARCOURT (Derby)

The Committee have heard three speeches from gentlemen who I believe are supporters of the Government, all of them gentlemen of authority in the Party, the last speaker being recognised as an earnest worker in the interests of the working classes. This measure has been denounced by them, and this fact may perhaps discourage the Government. The Committee have heard some remarkable statements from the hon. Member for North Islington as to the burden of the Income Tax; but those statements seemed to me to tell rather in the direction of graduated Income Tax.

MR. BARTLEY

I merely quoted the figures of the payments now made by the different classes of persons having to pay Income Tax. I have no idea of graduated Income Tax at present.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I should be sorry to attribute any heresy to the hon. Member; all I suggested was that the remedy for the evil he has pointed out would seem to be a graduated Income Tax, a danger which I am sure he entirely deprecates. Those being the unfavourable symptoms on the other side of the House, I beg the right hon. Gentleman who introduced the measure to believe that there are a great number of Members who are in favour of free education, and who are glad that the right hon. Gentleman has arrived at those convictions which he has so frankly and so honestly avowed. But what is wanted is real free education, undiluted free education. I know very well that it is often the habit, especially in measures coming from the other side of the House, to introduce all kinds of restrictions and limitations which sometimes are very useful. Those restrictions are like the shores used to prop up a ship while it is being built, but when the vessel is launched the shores and props are knocked away; and I trust to see, either this year or the year after, the abolition of the limits to the Bill. I have not risen to make any lengthened observations on the Bill; I wish to see it in print first; but I have risen only because I was afraid that the Government might be dismayed by the speeches which have been delivered from the other side, and I wish them to be of good courage, in spite of the heavy shot fired on them from below the Gangway. There are, however, one or two points which are not quite clear to the Committee. We should like to know whether in the rural schools the Government can give the assurance that in every one of those schools there will be, and must be, free education. That point has not been made quite clear. I should also like to know in distinct terms what measures the Government are going to take to secure that the excess of contribution over the fees will go to the improvement of education and not to the relief of the voluntary contributions. SO much for the rural schools. The Committee have not clearly understood what the right hon. Gentleman is going to do with the schools where the fees are above 3d., and what is to be the consequence in those cases. I very much agree with the hon. Member for North Islington that the right hon. Gentleman's proposal—which was received with a loud smile—that a 5d. fee should be reduced to 2d., will not hold water. Is it possible to conceive side by side with free schools other schools where fees will continue to be paid? I do not quite understand what is the value the right hon. Gentleman attaches to the fact that fees are to be paid in certain schools. The right hon. Gentleman says that the present variation in fees and in schools will be maintained. But I understand that the object of making a change is to remove the anomalies and evils of the system. Therefore, to say that the object of a plan is to keep things as they are is to condemn it. The right hon. Gentleman says that where parents desire to have free education they are after a certain time to have the right to it. How is this going to be worked out? Is it to be possible for a single parent to say, "I want free education for my child," and, if he does, is his child to receive free education in a ninepenny school? Can such a system work? How can you have many scholars paying 9d. and one going free? Is it meant that all the parents of the scholars shall have a right to demand that a free school shall be set up? ["Hear, hear!"] Very well; how will the thing be done? I have Returns of fees paid at certain schools, and these show that they amount to 15s. at Accrington, 17s. at Bury, and 19s. 2 ½d. at Stockport. What is gong to happen in Stockport? Who is to decide whether a free school shall be set up? I am addressing these questions to the Vice President, and I hope the answers will not be inspired by the Member for Oxford University; that is the last source from which I wish to have an inspired answer. What will be the position of the 19s. 2 ½d. school with free schools by the side of it? These are what appear to us to be the blots in your Bill, so far as it has been presented to us. We fear that it will, instead of removing anomalies, introduce fresh difficulty. It may be that we have misapprehended the proposal of the Government. What is desired is absolutely free education. Will the Government give an assurance that there shall be free schools in rural parishes? If they do, there will remain the far more important question in whose hands the control shall be placed. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not regard these criticisms as in any way hostile to the measure, but only as expressing a desire to strengthen and extend the scheme which has been submitted to the House.

(7.24.) MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN (Birmingham, W.)

It is rather diffi-cult to discuss the principle of a measure which is not before the House in all its details. It has been usual, on the introduction of a measure, to do no more than was necessary to elucidate its details. At the same time, I do not think the House will regret to have had exhibited in several speeches survivals of the past in the shape of arguments against any such measure, which would have been thought very tenable 20 or 30 years ago. Now, however, circum- stances have forced such a measure on both sides of the House. Yet, "faithful among the faithless," a few are found to urge objections which have become antiquated. Parents, it is said, will not value an education they do not pay for. They will still pay; the Bill only alters the method in which they will pay. Instead of taking the money from the parent at the time when he has most difficulty in paying it, it calls upon him to pay through the taxation of the country during the whole course of life. The payment would extend over a longer period, but the parent pays as much in one case as in the other. Hon. Gentlemen have told us that experience, and particularly that of foreign countries, is against the proposal; and on that point I differ from them entirely. Their authorities are very questionable. Who are they? The Rev. Dr. Rigg, Dr. Fitch, and an anonymous writer. Dr. Rigg has always held his opinion. Dr. Fitch held the same views in 1870. Since then we have obtained a mass of information. Dr. Rigg, I venture to say, is now in a minority in the Wesleyan body, and Dr. Fitch among Her Majesty's Inspectors. The experience of America has been referred to. If my hon. Friend had taken the trouble to read the Reports of Matthew Arnold he would have seen that they show that in every case in which schools have been made free by State Legislatures there has been at once an immediate and a large increase in the average attendance. A similar result followed in France, and it has been attained even in England. Before 1870 the Manchester Education Society established a free school in Manchester, and there the attendance was more admirable in every respect than at any other school in the town. At Birmingham, when I was Chairman of the School Board, we had not power to establish a free school, but we had power to reduce the fees to the minimum of a penny, and in every case in which we did so the attendance went up and became more regular. Indeed, there is now abundant evidence to show that where education has been cheapened or made free, there the attendance has been infinitely improved. Then, the present method of collecting fees has a most injurious effect upon education. In cases in which parents are unable or unwilling to pay fees children are sent home for the fees by teachers, they lose a day's teaching, and in that way occurs a break in continuous instruction which every one knows to be most disastrous. It is said that these cases might be met by free orders, but the application for them, besides being in itself a humiliation, smooths the way to the Board of Guardians and the poorhouse, and familiarises parents with the receipt of relief. I appeal to the hon. Baronet the Member for Evesham whether it is not the result of his experience on the School Board for London that free orders are increasing, and is it not almost certain that this demand will go on increasing until it will become difficult to avoid making schools free? If they do not do so, every extension of the free system will increase the unfairness and injustice to those parents who have to pay; for they will have to pay not only for their own children, but for their neighbours', who are, perhaps, as well off as themselves. On these grounds I have come to the conclusion that it has become a social and educational necessity to release the parents of the children attending elementary schools altogether from the payment of fees. Again, by this change the teachers will be relieved altogether of a great burden now falling upon them. The teachers have to spend a considerable time in keeping the accounts in connection with the fees, and in endeavouring to collect the fees. It would be most economical to release the teacher from this work, and enable him to devote the whole of his time to the education of the children. I now come to a different class of objection. There are two important matters to be considered. In the first place, is the freedom of the education given under this Bill to be complete? In the consideration of this question, I separate hon. Members' capacity as educationists from their capacity as politicians. As far as educationists are concerned we ought to be thoroughly satisfied with the measure, for, as far as I can see, it is complete. A grant of 10s. is to be allowed all round as against the existing fees. Wherever the fee now charged does not exceed 10s. that school henceforth will be absolutely free for children between the ages of five and 14. Personally, I very much regret the limit of 14 years, on purely educational grounds. I think it very undesirable to put anything in the nature of a handicap upon the extension of education, or to lessen the temptation of parents to keep their children at school as long as possible. I know that at present only some 40,000 children are affected by the 14 years of age limit; but I hope the Government will favourably consider any Amendment for the elimination of the limit. I do not similarly plead for those children below the age of five, because at that age it is not a question of education, but rather one of nursing; arrangements. Proper education does not begin till after the age of five, and therefore, as far as those children are concerned, I do not plead for any extension. Those schools whose fees do not exceed 10s. will be entirely free, and, of course, in this category are included by far the large majority of the schools, The percentage of these schools to the whole number is something like 80, and with regard to the other 20 per cent., where the fees are above 10s., I understand that the managers will have a choice. They will be able to make their schools absolutely free, or they may continue such a fee as will bring in the difference between the 10s. grant and the old fee. The children in these schools may therefore be called upon to pay a reduced fee; but if the parents desire free education they are not compelled to send their children to these schools. As I understand, the Bill provides that anyone in any district where there is no absolutely free education provided can petition the Education Department, and the Department, after satisfying themselves of the truth of the petition, can make an order, in the terms of the Orders under the Elementary Education Act of 1870, requiring the accommodation to be provided within a reasonable date. If the order be not complied with a School Board will be set up, and a School Board school opened. I think, therefore, I have proved my point that this Bill is not incomplete, but complete for free education; because anybody in the country who desires free elementary education will be able to have it under the Bill. I say "anybody who desires it," because there may be a class of parents who do not desire it. An hon. Gentleman behind me protested against the suggested desirability of maintaining distinctions in the elementary schools. I do not know whether I should go so far as to say that it is desirable to maintain these distinctions, but I say that as long as human nature remains the same it cannot be prevented. The attempt has been made in the United States, and undoubtedly one of the reasons for the extension of private and voluntary schools in that country since the enforcement of the Education Acts has been the desire on the part of the better:class of the working men and smaller shopkeepers to have for their children an education a little more select than that given by the common schools. An hon. Gentleman says that is undesirable. Well, I ask him to consider practically the circumstances of the case. Would he like to send his children to a school where they might meet very rough people indeed? Is he perfectly certain that in that case the good communications of his children would make better manners among the others, or would he not be rather afraid of the converse taking place? As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) has said, in Birmingham we have most excellent schools, both Board and voluntary; but in spite of the excellence of the schools and the lowness of the fees there are parents who prefer a private school, not because the education is better, but because they desire to keep their children apart. We may expect, then, that in a great number of cases there will not be any objection to paying the modified fees payable under the Bill. The cases of Stockport, Macclesfield, and Preston have been quoted. Undoubtedly, the fees charged in those towns are very high, and a large proportion of the schools there will not be free under the Bill, if the managers choose to continue to charge the difference between the present fee and the 10s. grant. But I believe that, under these circumstances, there will be a demand for free education, not a demand equal to the full extent of the accommodation required, because a very considerable number of the working classes will, I think, prefer to pay the modified fees. The result will be that the voluntary schools will have to make their schools free, or else new schools will have to be established. From an educational point of view I am glad to give a hearty support to the Bill, and to see so much progress in a direction in which I have laboured for so many years. There is one other objection which has been taken, which has been lightly glanced at, and I think properly lightly glanced at during the present discussion, and that is what I should call a political objection, because it is likely to divide parties. It is alleged by some that the grant of free education should be accompanied by control of the voluntary schools; but it ought to be declared whether by control is meant real control or only popular representation. I, myself, should strongly urge any voluntary school to accept popular representation, because to do so would strengthen the institution. But popular control is altogether a different thing. I will not at this moment go into the question whether it would be desirable or not; but, whatever I may have stated on that matter in the past, and I do not think I have said anything inconsistent with what I am going to say, I have now come to the conclusion that it is not desirable, practicable, or politic to ask for public control over those schools. I do not think that I have ever said anything inconsistent with my present statement. But whether from the numerous speeches I have made on the subject of free education any remark can be picked out which is at variance with that statement I really cannot say. The hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Illing-worth) ironically cheers that remark. I will say this, that in 1885, long before I had any idea that a Conservative Government would propose free education, and when I had no idea that the Gladstonian Liberals would support it. ["Oh!"] Ob, yes, I am aware, of course, that there were brilliant exceptions; there is the right hon. Member for Derby, for instance, who has always been a consistent advocate of free education; I have always given him credit for having worked with me in 1870 in that direction, and I am not likely to forget the fact. But I was going to say that in 1885, when I had no reason for modifying my views on the subject, I went down to Bradford, the district represented by my hon. Friend, and on that occasion I put forward the very plan of this Bill. I then stated that it was unnecessary to interfere with the denominational schools, and that it was undesirable to destroy such schools on account of the enormous expense that would be entailed by their destruction. I admit that at that time the hon. Member for Bradford took a different view of the question.

MR. ILLINGWORTH

Will the right hon. Gentleman allow me to explain. The right hon. Gentleman was present at a meeting of the National Liberal Federation in 1885, when a programme was adopted under which it was provided that public elementary education should be free and should be under popular control; and the right hon. Gentleman took up that programme and supported it.

MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN

No; that is not exactly accurate. Undoubtedly I accepted generally the principle of free education as laid down by the National Liberal Federation at that time; but at the meeting I explained my views upon this particular point. I remember, too, that I went so far as to put my views into writing in an article which appeared in the Fortnightly Review, in which I explained that upon this particular question of the destruction of denominational schools my opinion differed from that held by the National Liberal Federation. I wish to point out that I regard the matter from the same point of view now that I did then, and that, in my opinion, it would not be safe for any Government, whether Conservative or Liberal, to propose any scheme which would involve the destruction of the denominational schools, on the ground that to provide substitutes for them would involve such an enormous cost, while the advantage to be gained would be so slight, that it was hopeless to expect to get a popular vote in favour of the proposal. That being my opinion then and now, I am perfectly satisfied with the line which the Government have taken in the matter. I am quite aware that a certain section of the House, who are represented by the hon. Member for Bradford, who has always entertained a different opinion on this point from that which I hold, and who certainly has the courage of his convictions, go boldly for destroying denominational schools altogether, for establishing popular control over education, and for setting up Board schools universally. Of course, they would have them to defend themselves against the objection that their proposal is a very costly one. That section are entitled to put forward their views in the form of either a Resolution or a Bill, but they have no right to mix up their opinions upon that particular point with the question of free education. The granting of free education will not alter their position with regard to the denominational schools in the slightest degree, and it will be just as easy for them to press forward their views with regard to those schools after as before free education is granted. The Government Bill will not strengthen the position of the denominational schools in the slightest degree. It must be recollected that the Government are not about to increase the income of the denominational schools on the average. Whether the money comes from the fees paid by the parents or from the State, as the result of compulsory taxation, the amount will be the same on the average — in some cases there may possibly be a gain, but in others there will be a loss. The right hon. Member for Sheffield has asked a question which is undoubtedly of great importance—namely, whether the Government intend to impose any conditions as to extra efficiency in cases where the grants happen to be a larger sum than has been received for fees. All I can say upon the point is that if the right hon. Gentleman can devise and put upon paper any plan for carrying out that proposal it shall receive my most careful consideration, and it will doubtless be welcomed both by the Government and by the House. I may, however, point out that it will not be a very easy thing to do. In Birmingham, for instance, the school fees amount to 5s. 7d. a head, while the education given is considerably above the average. In such a case is it going to be insisted that if 10s. is to be granted in place of the 5s. 7d., the character of the education, which is already so very good, is to be still further improved? Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to make an exception in favour of Birmingham? Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman wishes to have a Schedule to the Bill. [Mr. MUNDELLA: No.] Well, I am bound to feel my way, because it is impossible for me to know beforehand what is passing in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman.

MR. MUNDELLA

I have pointed out that the grant of 10s. to voluntary schools will in some cases go to reduce the voluntary subscriptions to those schools.

MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN

That remark of the right hon. Gentleman in no way touches the point I was making, because the 10s. grant will not go towards reducing voluntary subscriptions in the case of the School Board schools. I want to know what the right hon. Gentleman proposes to do in the case of School Board schools where the 10s. grant will exceed the amount of fees, as is the case in Birmingham, where the education given is already above the average. On the question of popular control, I think it is possible that the section of the House to which I have referred may have a very good case, but my contention is that that question does not arise at all upon this Bill, which, as an educationist, and as a social reformer, I wish to see pass. I wish to ask hon. Members who agree with me upon social and educational questions to consider whether the subject of popular control should not be raised upon some other occasion. In all parts of the House the conviction is almost universally held that free education has become inevitable, and no doubt a Conservative Government, for reasons which I need not particularise, have great advantages in attempting to carry out the proposal, and the friends of free education must be delighted to find that the matter has fallen into the hands of those who are so well able to deal with it. Now that the opportunity is so favourable for free education, for Heaven's sake let us avoid unnecessary discussion and do our best to enable the Bill to pass in what remains of the present Session.

(8.0.) SIR W. HART DYKE

I am quite aware that later in the evening I may have to answer other questions that may be raised; but it is most important if this discussion is to continue that it should be continued on some clearly established basis. A sentence of mine seems to have altogether missed my right hon. Friend opposite, who, when I; uttered the sentence, was speaking to his neighbours. What I said was this:— We propose that free places in a school, or a free school, should he provided in any locality where such accommodation is demanded, and that the same machinery now existing for the supply of ordinary school accommodation should he applicable for free school accommodation. I think that covers the whole ground.

SIR W. HARCOURT

Will the righthon. Gentleman explain more fully this method of providing free places in schools?

SIR W. HART DYKE

I did explain this. I endeavoured to explain that in schools where there is a variety of fees and where free education is demanded, this would be provided by means of the same machinery which now provides school accommodation.

SIR W. HARCOURT

Would this be the view of the Government? Supposing there are 100 parents in a locality who demand free education, will the Government say that these parents must find places for their children in the existing schools? Or, on the other hand, instead of so distributing the children, will the Department direct the establishment of a non-fee paying school?

SIR W. HART DYKE

I was coming to that. The right hon. Gentleman asks by what means the demand of parents for free education can be made known. Now, there is the method by which the wants of a locality are made known now, by means of a memorial to the Department, and in this manner parents can combine and make their wishes known. If 100 parents demand free school accommodation that would necessitate a school. At all events, that is my present view of the matter. How this would work I have already indicated in my previous remarks. Where a number of these high-fee schools are in existence, and where the demand for free places is created, one, or perhaps two, of these schools would have to become free. No doubt, by cooperation between the schools, such accommodation would be found.

MR. SYDNEY BUXTON

Assuming that the managers of the schools to which the right hon. Gentleman refers should decline to accept free places, or to make one of their schools a free school, I would like to know how the right hon. Gentleman proposes that there should be a free school?

SIR W. HART DYKE

As I have said, the machinery now existing for the supply of ordinary school accommodation would be applied for free schools.

MR. MUNDELLA

By a School Board?

SIR W. HART DYKE

In every locality where the managers of voluntary schools refuse to supply the free accommodation demanded, the ordinary machinery of the Education Act will come into operation for setting up a School Board. Most probably, by a little cooperation, the schools will be able to manage the affair themselves. It is obvious that some little time must elapse before the views of a locality can be accurately known, and the time proposed to be allowed by the Bill for making such arrangements as I have indicated will be one year. It will doubtless be necessary for the Department to draw up certain regulations for getting early and accurate information on this point.

MR. MUNDELLA

Will not provision be made in the Bill for some means of testing the wishes of the population as to free schools?

SIR W. HART DYKE

That might be a question for Committee.

(8.8.) MR. S. SMITH (Flintshire)

We have listened with great attention to the right hon. Gentleman's statement, and with much that he said we agree. I wish particularly to call attention to that part of his speech in which he dealt with the distinction between fee schools and free schools, and, as I have been quoted as being in favour of keeping up the distinction, I may be allowed to point out that a rather unfair construction has been placed upon a few words of mine, picked out of a speech really in favour of free education. I claim to have been one of the earliest in favour of free education for the working classes; but I did point out a difficulty that would arise in connection with the social condition of the poorest portion of the population of our large towns. I have had experience among the lowest and most degraded occupants of the slums in our large towns, and I do say that the children of these parents are in that condition that the better class of artisans will not allow their children to associate with them. There is a section of the children in our large towns in London, Liverpool, and Manchester who attend school covered with vermin, and suffering from itch and skin diseases, who are filthy in habits and language, and no father of the respectable class of our working population could endure that his child should associate with these. Some classification must take place, and whatever the House may think, there is no getting over the fact that there exists in the large towns a residuum which must be dealt with separately in some form or other, seeing that a considerable section of the working classes will rather pay a small fee than allow their children to sit side by side with the class to which I have referred. I do not see why I should be regarded as having been guilty of a breach of sound policy because I have suggested that intelligent artisans and tradesmen ought to be allowed in some sense to choose the company with whom their children are to associate. It is only in this very limited sense that I advocated any distinction in our elementary schools, and for this very limited purpose, and I think if we could test the opinion of the working classes concerned, the great bulk of their opinion would be found in agreement with mine. And now I wish to call attention to two great defects in the scheme shadowed forth this evening. The first of these must in a special sense appeal to those who represent Welsh constituencies. Wales is a nation of Nonconformists, but a great part of the education is still supplied by Church schools. What the Nonconformist population object to is that in not a few cases the Church schools in Wales are proselytizing schools. Consequently the Liberal Members for Wales cannot heartily support this Bill unless some provision is made for popular representation upon the management. We do not ask that voluntary schools should be swept away, and that School Boards should be substituted all over the country, we do not believe that would be possible at present, and do not think that it would be fair; but we do ask that in a country like Wales, where the great mass of the population are Nonconformists, that there should be a reasonable amount of popular representation, parents being allowed to elect members to the management, and have a voice in the selection of the schoolmaster and the character of the religious teaching. The other great defect in connection with the proposal is in relation to a matter I have often brought before the House, a point upon which our educational system is very imperfect, that we allow children to leave school at far too early an age. I should be sorry if we should lose this good opportunity to ask the working classes to make some small sacrifice by allowing their children to remain longer at school. If the right hon. Gentleman will listen to the appeal made to him, he will use this opportunity to improve the elementary education of the country. It is a deplorable fact that one-third of all the children attending elementary schools leave between the ages of 10 and 11, another third between 11 and 12, and only one-third continue after 12. This is a condition of elementary education far below the level of other European countries. In France the age of compulsory attendance is 13, in Germany 14. This is a great opportunity for bringing up the level of our education, and I regret that the Government are not proposing to do anything in the direction I have pointed out. I admit gladly that the Bill is a great advance in the direction of free education, and that a great boon is being conferred on the working classes. So far as I can see from the explanations elicited by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, this will bring free education within the reach of all who wish for it, and I do not see that we are compelled to thrust free education upon those who do not want it. If there is a section among the working classes who prefer to pay fees for their children's education it will be a mistake to refuse them the opportunity. This is all I have to say at the present stage of the proposal. I think we are bound to insist that there shall be a means of protecting children against the proselytising effect of the teaching in Church schools, and I think the working classes are now quite prepared for that forward step which I regret the Government have not had the courage to take, the raising the age for compulsory attendance.

(8.20.) COLONEL EYRE (Lincolnshire, Gainsborough)

I claim to be one of those who are exempt from the stigma of a bribe in this matter. I have always held that compulsion naturally involves the corollary of the remission of fees, tha the fees should be paid out of the Imperial Exchequer, because the child is educated for the benefit of the State, not of the locality, and also that Board schools and voluntary schools should be treated on the same footing. I can safely say that as regards my own Division the two systems work well together, and I am not aware that there is any feeling of antagonism between them. I will endeavour to reply to some of the objections made in and out of the House. Objection has been raised that the payment of the fees would pauperise the parents. Statistics show that about one-fourth of the cost of the education of a child is paid by the parent, and that is all. That would amount to about 3d. in every 1s. Will anyone really assert that freedom from the payment of that 3d. will pauperise a parent, or lessen his or her interest in the education of the child? Again, it is said that education is a parental duty, and that if we free a child's education we might as well free its clothing and food. I think there is a vast difference between the two. Food and clothing are necessities of existence; we cannot say that of education, which is for the benefit of the body corporate. With regard to the expense, I think it is small in comparison with the advantages that we shall derive from this additional expenditure. The statistics of the London School Board for 1885 show that in that year 185,000 notices to parents with regard to non-attendance were served, that 12,000 parents were summoned, and 10,000 convicted, at a cost of something like £35,000. Now, at least half of that will be saved by the abolition of fees. Free education is spreading rapidly all over the world. It is already well established in Europe—for instance, in France, Norway, Sweden, Geneva, Neuchatel, Ticino Vaud, and Zurich education is free. In Austria, save in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia; in Italy and Bavaria it is free, save for a very small entrance. In Belgium 500,000 scholars are free, and under 100,000 pay fees. In Hungary parents pay 3s. 8d. a year. In Prussia free; and it is well known that the colonies are ahead in this matter of the Mother Country. In our own colonies schools are free in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Manitoba, and also in New Zealand. In Australia, Queensland, where the schools are free, the results seem to compare not unfavourably with South Australia and Tasmania, where fees are maintained. It is said that this system will interfere with religious education, but I do not anticipate that there is here any difficulty that cannot be met, and we do not find there is that difficulty in those countries where the system has been adopted. I am aware that the Minority Report of the recent Commissioners, with one exception, says that no practical scheme for freeing schools has come before them which they can consider compatible with the continuance of the voluntary system. I believe it has been left for the present Administration to solve the difficulty. In many countries there is free education, and, at the same time, religious instruction. In Austria, in Bavaria (where there is compulsory Sunday School), in Prussia, in Norway, and Sweden. Even in France, Thursday is reserved as a whole holiday to enable parents to have their children taught in the religion to which they belong. As a Churchman I do not believe that religious education will receive the slightest injury from the proposal. My remarks are now of a general nature, and I reserve the right to agree or differ on points of detail that may arise in Committee. I believe this grant will be an enormous boon to the agricultural population, and I speak more especially for that portion of the agricultural population I have the honour to represent. In parts of the Eastern Counties the wages paid are lower than in other parts of England, and the remission of school fees will be an enormous boon to poor parents. I heard with great regret, I think it was from an hon. Member on this side of the House, the suggestion that the fees saved would be spent by the agricultural labourers in drink. I can speak for the Eastern Counties, and I say that I know no more sober class of men than the agricultural labourers. To these men the Bill will be a great boon, and I shall give my cordial support to the general principle of the Bill.

(9.0.) MR. CALDWELL (Glasgow, St. Rollox)

The Government have been very fortunate in having surpluses from Colonel Eyre year to year, but they have not been equally fortunate in their method of applying them. On a former occasion they nearly came to grief over the Van and Wheel Tax, and, subsequently, over the question of compensation to the publicans; and I venture to say that on this occasion they have ventured on a path which they will find a very thorny one with regard to free education—not so much with regard to the principle of free education itself as with regard to the mode in which they propose to deal with this subject. Those who reap the benefit of the Government proposals will accept their help without any feeling of political gratitude; while, on the other hand, those who feel that the scheme does not go far enough in the advancement of their interests, will give the Government opposition instead of support.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,

MR. CALDWELL

The Government will undoubtedly receive opposition from those ratepayers who, having no children to educate, will, nevertheless, have the increased education rates to pay. The Government proposal is of a very wide and extensive character. They lay down the principle that education shall be free in England and Wales for children between the ages of 5 and 14 years. How they will carry this proposal out is another matter. It is much wider than anything we have in Scotland. Our education ceases to be compulsory after a child has passed the Fifth Standard, but here the Government propose that education shall be continued beyond the Fifth Standard, and until the child attains the age of 14 years. The mistake the Government are making is in thinking that free schools can exist side by side with the fee-paying schools. This has been found impossible in Scotland, where it was attempted, and the result was that there were only 25 free schools left in the whole country, so that agitation on the subject will be carried on until the next General Election. To maintain the fee-paying and free schools side by side is to cast a slur on those parents who send their children to the free schools, and they will never be satisfied until the whole of the schools are made free, so that all the children shall occupy the same status with regard to compulsory education. The hon. Member for Flintshire (Mr. S. Smith) has said that he did not think that the better portion of the working classes should be compelled to have their children mixed with those belonging to the scum of the towns; but I would remind the hon. Member that in the whole of our parochial schools in Scotland there is no class distinction whatever; the children of the landed proprietor sit side by side with the sons of the labouring poor, and there has never been any such class distinction as he suggests. Even the landed proprietors themselves do not ask for that distinction. Moreover, I would point out that in the case of large cities this is a matter which rectifies itself. It may be said why should the children of Kensington be mixed up with those of Whitechapel. The answer is that such a state of things is practically impossible. Where a school is established in a particular locality it will be attended by the children living in that locality, thereby carrying out what may be regarded as a natural law. When the hon. Member for Flintshire speaks of certain shopkeepers not liking their children to mix with certain other children, I would ask him what about those working men who cannot pay school fees at all? Are they to be forced to keep their children away from schools? Another point is that if you have these free schools they ought to be equal to any other schools in the locality. Take the case of schools where the average contribution per head is under 10s. per year. Do hon. Members think it possible you can conduct a free school, giving a sufficient elementary education between the ages of 5 and 14, where the school fees at present do not exceed 10s. per year? I think it absolutely impossible. If you establish free schools for the working classes of England they will insist, as is the case in Scotland, that those schools shall be as efficient as any others in the same district. In the case of voluntary schools where the fees are under 10s., a profit would be made by the managers under your proposal, and it does not seem to be the intention of the Government to insist on any increased deficiency in these schools. It has been pointed out that in Birmingham, where the school fees in one school are only 5s. 4d. per head, that school would be receiving a benefit under the grant equal to 4s. 8d.; but in the Birmingham school referred to, although the school fees only amount to 5s. 4d., it does not follow that that represents the costs of the education given: a considerable portion of the cost coming from the local rates. In my opinion the proposal of the Government can only result in the destruction of voluntary schools. Under the Government proposal the voluntary schools must supply free places for all children between 5 and 14, or be prepared to meet with the competition of Board Schools. Either there must be free education in the voluntary schools or there must be Board Schools. What will be the probable demand when this principle is once established? How many parents are likely to pay? The Government base their proposal on the existing state of things, but that state of things will not continue to exist when their proposal is carried out, because if the parents find they can get their children educated free by simply asking for it, it is very unlikely that they will continue to pay fees. The effect, therefore, must naturally be that the voluntary schools will go to the wall. Take the case of voluntary schools where the average fee may be 19s.; it may come to this: that for a payment of 10s. by the Government, some parents would reap the benefit of 19s., while others would pay the whole amount. How would this work? Surely it must tend to destroy the voluntary schools. Some parents may insist on having education for their children costing double the average school fee, and the managers of the voluntary school may have to provide education costing 25s. to meet that demand. In acknowledging the principle that every child is entitled to free education between 5 and 14, the Government have taken a position from which they cannot resile. But with regard to the working out of the details, that is a matter which will not be under the control of any particular Government, either now or hereafter, but will be regulated in accordance with the views generally entertained throughout the country. Having once established this principle, the Govern- ment have landed themselves in a mistaken policy, based upon the false idea that the existing state of things is one that will continue. On the contrary, the whole system will undergo radical changes, and it will be the fault of the Government if they find that the results of their action are very different to what they now seem to anticipate.

(9.16.) SIR R. LETHBRIDGE (Kensington, N.)

I do not propose to trespass on the time of the Committee for more than a very few minutes; but as a considerable portion of my life has been passed in the work of an Educational officer of the Government, I desire to make a few remarks on the Motion that has been brought forward by my right hon. Friend in his very clear and lucid statement. I wish at once to challenge the statement of my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Mr. Howorth), which has also been repeated in several of the speeches delivered from the opposite side this evening, namely, that the Conservative Party generally in supporting this Bill are going back on the pledges made by them in 1885 and 1886. I can myself speak strongly on that point, because in my own constituency the question of free education was a burning question during the election of 1885. It was discussed by myself and my opponent on platforms throughout the constituency, and I may quote one or two words of my election address, in order to show that I do not fall under the censure of my hon. Friend. In that address, after objecting to the proposals made by some Radical friends of free education, on the ground that they would necessarily involve the destruction of the voluntary schools, or give the Board schools such an advantage in the shape of an endowment as would bring about the downfall of the voluntary system, I said— I recognise the hardship that is inflicted on many parents of the poorest class by the present law in regard to the remission of fees; and I would support any well-considered measure of reform, such as the provision from Imperial Funds of a system of free exhibitions tenable in voluntary schools as well as in Board schools. I venture to hope, despite the laughter from the hon. Member on the other side of the House, that that distinctly describes the proposal now made by Her Majesty's Government. Surely the 10s. grant is open to the voluntary as well as to the Board schools, and it is in itself of the nature of an exhibition. In saying this I think I have said enough to show that some Conservative Members at least have been favourable to the principle of the present proposal. With regard to the point put forward by the hon. Member for North Islington (Mr. Bartley) and some Members opposite, namely, that the voluntary schools will be destroyed, or, at least, greatly injured by this system of free exhibitions, I certainly fail to understand how this grant of 10s. per head, which is to be given equally to voluntary and Board schools, can put the Board schools in any better position than the voluntary schools; if you mete out to both classes of schools the same measure, neither class can suffer. Hon. Members on both sides must feel that if anything can be done to alter the present system under which remission of fees is obtained it is a good and desirable thing. The hon. Member for Salford has said he is most anxious to alter the present method if he could see some means of doing it without injuring the voluntary schools. Surely that is exactly what the Government propose, and, therefore, I shall give the Bill my most hearty support.

(9.24.) MR. PICTON (Leicester)

The hon. Member who has just sat down has described the Government proposal as involving a Bill for free exhibitions. Certainly, one usually associates the idea of exhibitions with a scholarship, enabling youths to proceed to Universities and Colleges to receive the higher kind of education. It is a favour which may be earned and may be deserved, but still it is a favour awarded in the case of particular schools to particular classes of the community. Perhaps the hon. Member opposite has properly described the proposal as a system of free exhibitions to be confined to a select number, while the larger number are debarred from them. This, however, is entirely different from our idea of free education, and from the speech of the hon. Baronet and others made at the commencement of this discussion, we are now able to understand how it comes to pass that the phraseology of the Government has swerved so constantly between the epithet "free" and the epithet "assisted." Sometimes one heard of free education, and sometimes of assisted education, and we were puzzled to understand how hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the other side should differ so much as to what sort of education was to be given. Now, however, that the Government scheme has been produced, we can well understand why it was that they did not know the difference between free and assisted education. We, on this side of the House, decline to endorse this scheme as one of free education, although we are perfectly happy in the assurance that it must lead to free education as a universal system. I, at least, am of opinion that there can be no doubt as to that. We have been continually told during this discussion, that it is not desirable to say much on the details of the proposal now before us, and with that limitation of the discussion I am disposed to agree. Nevertheless, there have been some points so graphically put before us that we have a perfect right to deal with them, and, therefore, I propose to canvass a few of them. The scheme propounded by the Government is one for the special abolition of fees for those children who are within the compulsory ages of 5 and 14. The right hon. Baronet (Sir William Hart Dyke) very rightly condemned the notion of limiting free education to particular standards, but he saw no disadvantage in leaving the charge on children under five years of age. He used, with regard to them, these remarkable words, that "under five years of age children go only to save their parents trouble, and, in fact, they practically learn nothing." I should like to know how much he has studied the question. Has he never heard of the Kindergarten system? Has he never read any of those interesting works in which it is shown that children obtain a very large part of their education before they are five years of age? I suppose his idea of education is cramming a child with multiplication tables, and spelling, and other such dry details. Has he any idea that education consists in the development of the faculties of the child, and I should like to know at what age is that development more swift and more interesting, or more needing scientific aid, than between the ages of three and five. If only the right hon. Baronet will take the trouble to go through one of the large Kindergarten schools which abound in London under the superintendence of the School Board, I think he will soon be disabused of his amazing idea that children practically learn nothing until they are five years of age. It is true that what they do learn is very often learned under the teaching of mothers and nurses, but that is not the class of population which demands school accommodation for their children. For poor children, the Kindergarten system is replete with blessings which are unspeakable. Yet we are told by the right hon. Baronet, who represents national education in this House, that children under five years of age may be neglected and left to play in the gutter, to get under the wheels of vans, and to lose their little lives by catching the infection which arises from the filth in the streets, because the Government will not pay their school fees for them. This is a very serious defect in the Bill, and one which ought to be remedied before the House is called upon to read the measure a second time. Already the London School Board has provided a very large amount of accommodation for infants of this age, and the money will have been largely wasted if these children stay away from school, as they undoubtedly will if you draw this arbitrary distinction between them and their older brothers and sisters. What I have said as to the London School Board applies equally to School Boards in large towns, and to many denominational schools. Now I come to the mode in which assisted education is to be applied. The managers of denominational schools are to be treated tenderly. They are to be allowed to charge the difference between the 10s. paid to them by the Government and the higher fees which they have been in the habit of receiving from the parents. What will be the consequence of this? We know that in elementary schools the fees have been as high as 9d. and 1s. Is it intended in cases where 1s. has been charged, the school shall receive the Government Grant and charge the parents 9d., or where the fee has been 9d. they shall charge 6d.? If that be so, there will be a large number of children in the country who, under a professed system of free education, will have to pay 6d. weekly for their schooling. Therefore, so far as that goes, the Bill is a mockery and a sham. "But," says the right hon. Baronet, "we shall take care that free places are provided in the schools." And what will be the difference between free places and free schools? Exactly the difference that there is between free seats in churches and free and open churches. In the latter Christians are placed on an equality; in the former the free seats tend to pauperise those who use them. And so free places in schools will lower children in the social scale. But, after all, I am bound to admit that there are some very excellent proposals in the scheme of the Government. For instance, when I consider its effect upon schools in which the fee is 1d., I say enormous advantage will accrue to the School Boards. The Boards have very many more 1d. fees that have denominational schools. I know that Roman Catholics, very much to their. credit, have, in proportion to the amount of school accommodation that they provide, a considerable number of 1d. fees, but still it is a comparatively small number, and it is true that the enormous majority of 1d. fees are to be found in Board schools. A penny at 40 school weeks a year gives 3s. 4d, and the remaining 6s. 8d. of the 10s. will be so far an endowment of Board schools, which I am sure the School Boards will heartily welcome, although it may be questioned if the managers of denominational schools will like it so well. In describing the difficulty of totally abolishing all fees in public elementary schools, the right hon. Baronet insisted on the necessity of what he called elasticity—not elasticity in educational requirements, but elasticity with a view to allaying the social jealousies which confessedly exist among different sections of the population. He desires to revive here and there the more expensive schools, in which children of specially fastidious parents may be educated. He quoted some remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Flintshire— remarks I am sorry to hear have been uttered by any hon. Member professing Liberal opinions—as to the classification of children. We have been told the great difficulty of entirely free public elementary schools is that there would be in attendance low and dirty children with whom the children of respectable people could not be expected to associate. Now, I have had some little experience in educational matters, and when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham turned round and claimed that his experience in elementary education was transcendental, I ventured to differ from him, for when he was busily engaged in business and attending to municipal affairs I was old enough to be taking a considerable interest in educational questions. I was in 1870 elected a member of the first School Board for London. I believe I was the only member elected on that Board, who put prominently in his address to the electors the principle of free compulsory secular education in our public elementary schools. I was a member of the Board for some nine years, and therefore I can claim to have experience in the matter. At the time the Board was created there were a large number of what were called ragged schools in London—a very shameful name to have been adopted for them. There was among the members of the Board from the beginning one of whose services it is impossible to speak too highly. I only regretted that venerable and honourable old age prevented him continuing his membership. I refer to Mr. Benjamin Lucraft, who possessed an extensive and profound knowledge of the working classes. He always protested against a classification which involved a stigma, insisting that the effect would be to keep the scholars in ragged schools at the low level at which they entered, and so give a lasting character to those schools. He maintained that if the schools were open to all sections of the community, it would tend to gradually ameliorate the condition of the worst classes. This was exemplified in the case of the Ben Jon-son School, where lads in a ragged and disreputable condition had their self-respect awakened, became animated by a spirit of emulation for tidiness, and soon became as other boys in the school. That is the result in all institutions in which social equality is insisted on. I regret that in Liverpool this distinction of class is kept up; there are ragged schools under the superintendence of the School Board, with the result that the children enter the school ragged, and leave it without any improvement in their social con- dition. Compare the systems of London and Liverpool, and you will see that the former is by far the best. The proposals of the Government fall very short indeed of what we might have expected from them when they gave the House to understand that they were going in for a system of free schools. When hon. Gentlemen were seeking examples of the system, why did they disregard our Colonies? In Australia and New Zealand, the children of people of every rank in society go to Board schools; and why should we be behind our own Colonies in this respect? There are two ideals before us in this matter. One is the satisfaction of all kinds of sectarian and social jealousies. That is the ideal which the right hon. Gentleman proposes to carry out. The other is the ideal of social equality and national interests, and it must be preferred above all local jealousies and sectarian prejudices. Although the Bill will doubtless be carried, it will be only a stepping-stone to something far nobler. It is not for Members on this side of the House to resist a policy which they know will be the doom of all denominational schools. The make-shift scheme of the right hon. Baronet cannot stand before the sweeping tide of popular opinion. In that view we welcome it. We think the right hon. Gentleman is the best friend of Radicalism in this House. At the same time, we have a right to turn to right hon. Gentlemen on this side of the House. Some of us are of opinion that if they had adopted a policy of free education long ago, the country would have supported them. We think that they were rather slow—that they were too Conservative in their leading. But now they have learned a lesson from the right hon. Baronet. We look to them to be faithful to their principles. If they play us false—and I do not suppose they will—they will strike a serious blow at the unity of the Liberal Party. But I believe that when the present occupants of the front Opposition Bench again return to office, one of their first acts will be to fill up the sketch of the right hon. Baronet, and to convert it into a grand ideal of universal national education under the control of School Boards, in accordance with the opinions of the people of England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.

(9.54.) SIR E. BIRKBECK (Norfolk, E)

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby seemed somewhat disturbed with regard to the support that this measure will receive from hon. Members on this side of the House. If he is under the impression that there will be great opposition on this side he is making an extraordinary mistake. I believe that only a very small number of Members on this side of the House will oppose the Bill on the Second Reading, and that those who do do so will, when they come to consider the matter with their constituents, find that they are in the wrong box. I desire, on behalf of the people of East Anglia, to thank the Government for having introduced this measure at the present time, and not delayed it till another Session. I thank the Vice President of the Council for the admirable speech in which he has explained its provisions. I am convinced that in East Anglia this measure will be hailed with delight. I am not a recent convert on this question; I have long believed that free education is a matter which ought to be undertaken by the Government. As Chairman of a School Board in a rural district, and as member of another School Board, I have become convinced that a measure like the present will lead to a better attendance in the schools. The school attendance officers have told me that if there is one thing which more than another will lead to more regular school attendance in rural districts it is a measure such as this. Again, as Chairman of a Bench of Magistrates, I have deplored the many cases that have come to our notice, and not only to our notice but to that of other Benches of Magistrates, of agricultural labourers who have had to give up a day's work and trudge eight or ten miles to be fined 1s. and 4s. expenses because of their inability to pay these school fees. I feel quite certain that many Magistrates sitting in this House must have regretted the imposition of fines for non-attendance of children, when the real cause for the non-attendance was the fact that the parents were unable to pay the school fees. I am quite sure that this measure will put an end to that state of things, and I am perfectly clear in my own mind that hon. Members who differ in regard to the measure will find that their views are not in accordance with the wishes of their constituents, and those who oppose the Bill will probably find, whether the General Election comes next year or a year after, that they will not be sent back by their constituents to this House.

(10.2.) MR. ILLINGWORTH

I think the discussion to-night ought to be welcomed, and I would congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council (Sir W. Hart Dyke) upon the performance of a very difficult and in some respects a disagreeable task. The right hon. Gentleman has been in a certain sense made the mouthpiece of a change of policy on the part of himself and his Party. He carried out the personal part of his task with such frankness and candour that it almost entirely disarmed any criticism that might have been based upon recollections of the right hon. Gentleman's former professions. He had, however, to perform a somersault on behalf of the whole of the Party which supports him. The right hon. Gentleman made an appeal to Members on this side of the House to forget the past. We have, however, not yet reached the millenium, and the right hon. Gentleman must be prepared for some home thrusts upon the position he and his Party have taken up in the past because it has a direct bearing on the policy enunciated to-night. The right hon. Gentleman deprecates the introduction of religious animosity, but he knows he would have produced a very different scheme if it had not been a primary necessity for the Government to frame a measure in which the greatest consideration should be shown to the denominational prejudices of those belonging to the National Church. How can it be supposed that the question can be discussed without having steadily in view the demands made by the Established Church? We, Sir, who have the interests of education simply and wholly at heart, want to go forward, progressively improving the educational apparatus of the country; but the Government have at every step to consider how the proposed changes will affect the status and privileges of the National Church. That is the reason why we have a scheme of such a limited, imperfect, and partial character submitted to the House. The name "voluntary" as applied to Church schools is a complete misnomer. There is nothing of a national character which is more completely misnamed than are the denominational schools when they are called voluntary schools. During the discussions on Mr. Forster's Bill of 1870, the voluntary schools were for the purpose called national schools. That term has now almost entirely gone out, and, for a purpose, this term "voluntary" is now employed in its place, the purpose being to induce us to deal more mercifully and tenderly with the denominational schools. In what sense are these voluntary schools? The only sense in which they can be so termed is that the Government and the House of Commons have voluntarily abnegated their duties in regard to them. About one-tenth of the maintenance of the schools of this country is provided by voluntary subscriptions. I want to know whether this House, for the sake of assistance to the extent of one-tenth of the cost, would forego its right of absolute control, both local and national, over any other institution in the land? It was at a time when the people had no voice in this House that this system of sectarian schools was established, and the result is that we are now obliged, at the close of the nineteenth century, to consider the interests and position of these schools when we are considering the great question of public education. From a statement made by the right hon. Gentleman, it appears that there are6, 800 school districts with only one school, and that about one-fourth of these districts have School Boards. I would point out that a district is not without a choice of school when it has a school of its own choice. Taking, however, the figures of the right hon. Gentleman, there are between 5,000 and 6,000 school districts in this country in which there is only one school, and that is connected with the National Society of the Church of England. It is in this direction that many of us are looking. What is to be the fate and future of the schools in these 6,000 school districts where there is no choice of schools, and where in the past the whole cost of the maintenance of the schools has come from State funds? Is it to be imagined that at this time of day the House of Commons will regard as satisfactory and sufficient a scheme in which no advance as to parental or popular control is dreamt of by the Government? I hope that when we come to a subsequent stage a declaration will be made from this side of the House as to what the nation is really entitled to ask for in the distribution of this vast amount of public money. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain), who has assisted in the exposition of the Government scheme, has informed the House that he has in no way changed his position on this question. I must leave the right hon. Gentleman to reconcile his own utterances. Speaking at Bradford on the 1st of October, 1885, at a time when he was ahead of his Party, the right hon. Gentleman said— The existence of sectarian schools and schools supported by State grants is no doubt a very serious question in itself, and one which some day or other ought to receive consideration. Whenever the time comes for its discussion I, for one, shall not hesitate to express my opinion that the contribution of Government money, whether great or small, ought in all cases to be accompanied by some form of representative control. To my mind the spectacle of a so called national school turned into a private preserve by clerical managers, and used for exclusive purposes of politics or religion, is one which the law ought not to tolerate long. I do not think that is the only utterance of the right hon. Gentleman going on precisely the same lines that is to be found. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, too, has on previous occasions championed the cause of popular representation of institutions maintained at the public expense.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,) St. George's, Hanover Square

I did not go against voluntary schools.

MR. ILLINGWORTH

We are not going against them. The right hon. Gentleman won his first distinction by the able part he played in the advocacy of open National Universities, and at that time precisely the same position was taken by the adherents of the National Church as is taken by them now. When the right hon. Gentleman fought the right of entrance to the mass of the people who wished to enter the Universities, the same pretensions were put forward as are put forward now on the part of those gentlemen who, at the national expense, are excluding the people from any management of these voluntary schools—so called voluntary schools. I apologise to the Committee for having fallen into the common mistake of recognising these schools as voluntary. If I remember right, even in later years the Chancellor of the Exchequer plainly intimated that he was on the side of popular control, and of some alteration in regard to these so-called sectarian schools. The question is, why have a Tory Government brought in this Bill? It has been candidly admitted by Bishops and others in very important positions that they have no liking for the project of free education, and that the only reason why it is brought forward is that if the question is left to the Liberal Party to deal with there will be less regard paid to the sectarian schools, and a great deal more concern shown as to what education is and what it ought to be. So far as the towns are concerned I look with some composure on the issue. Wherever we have a School Board many of us are prepared to allow the two or three schemes to run side by side; but the House will be sadly neglecting a very serious duty if it does not show some instant regard for the condition and position of the rural districts. In regard to free places, we know what they signify in a church, and in a school I suppose they will mean the same thing. The distinction that will be set up between children who pay and children who do not pay will be a very odious one in many rural schools, and a. great disservice will be done to the cause of education if it is established. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham has argued that this proposal makes no advance in the direction of popular representation. I reply that, at any rate, there is a decreasing right on the part of the managers of these schools to the maintenance of an institution towards which less and less is every year paid in the shape of voluntary contributions. I hope the right hon. Gentleman, who, I believe, sincerely desires the progress of education, will accept suggestions, even from this side, which are intended primarily and wholly in the interests of education, though they may appear to militate against the position of the clerical managers.

(10.26.) MR. HEATH (Lincolnshire, Louth)

I rise to congratulate the Government on the statesmanlike manner in which they propose to deal with the question of free education. I believe the proposal will prove satisfactory, not only to the labouring classes, but to the ratepayers generally. In the past there i was opposition to free education, because it was felt it would be attended with immense danger to religious education, and involve a heavy charge upon the pockets of the taxpayers. In my belief, the scheme introduced will have none of those dreaded effects; indeed, it will, if anything, tend to lower the local rates. On the other side of the House objection has been raised on the ground that the Scheme contains no provision giving popular control or providing for the increased efficiency of the elementary schools. But, in the first place, there is no demand for popular control of the schools; and, in the second place, the criticism which has been offered to the Bill will only serve to raise old controversies that will prevent the measure passing into law this year. As the Bill stands, it will tend greatly to an increase of the efficiency of schools, particularly in the rural districts. Those who have had to do with schools in rural districts know the immense clerical labour entailed on managers and teachers in collecting fees and keeping books. The absence of this clerical labour will tend greatly to increased efficiency. And I believe if managers do derive pecuniary benefit, a great portion of it will go towards the improvement of the schools. The objections offered to the Bill by the hon. Members for Salford and North Islington appear to me to be antiquated and sentimental. Poor men receiving 12s. 6d. and 15s. a week find it hard on the Monday to pay the 4d. or the 6d. in school fees, and it is especially difficult for them to do so when they have been out of work through inclement weather and other causes. It is said that in these cases fees should be paid by the Guardians, but it is a hard thing to make the honest and industrious poor go to the Boards of Guardians to ask for relief in the matter of school fees; it has a degrading effect upon them. Those who feel no degradation in the action will go; but those with a feeling of self-respect more strongly developed will not seek this means of relief, though they may sadly want it. I know that the Bill will be of enormous advantage to agricultural labourers particularly; it will be an immense advantage to small schools; and I hope that without delay the people will reap the benefit of the proposal.

(10.31.) MR. J. STUART (Shoreditch, Hoxton)

I think the hon. Gentleman has made rather a lame apology for his Party in endeavouring to point out that it was only one particular form of free education he and his friends on the Front Bench opposed in 1885. I am afraid he has not looked very closely into the matter, or he would have found that the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen sitting near him opposed not only the scheme of free education suggested by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham, but opposed free education in any form, not only because it would be injurious to denominationalism, but as ruinous to education generally, as well as to the parents relieved by it. I have looked up the record in Hansard, and if hon. Members will do the same they will find, as I have found, that speeches, such for instance as that of the First Lord of the Admiralty, were directed in 1885 against free education in any form.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord G. HAMILTON,) Middlesex, Ealing

I presume the hon. Gentleman refers to quotations which appear in the Star newspaper; and, if so, I may say now that the quotation stops exactly where it should go on.

MR. J. STUART

I referred to the noble Lord, because he seemed to indicate dissent from my general statement; but I am not incorrect when I say that the colleague of the noble Lord, now the Chief Secretary for Ireland, undoubtedly opposed any form of free education, and gave the reasons I have mentioned. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer cannot deny that he brought forward with great force at that time an argument against the socialistic character of such a proposal and the injurious effect it would have on education. At that time, or in 1876, the Chancellor of the Exchequer foretold the determined opposition which would arise and continue in this country against denominational schools, and against the contribution of public funds for their support, but now it appears that the right hon. Gentleman, in order to continue and to strengthen denominational education, is prepared to support the free education which he condemned so generally in 1885. The amount of change visible in the views of right hon. Gentlemen opposite since that time is almost alarming, and one scarcely wonders that so little approval was expressed of the speech of the Vice President of the Council by hon. Gentlemen behind and around him, for they must find it difficult indeed to eat these words of 1885 and swallow the principles of 1876. The hon. Gentleman who preceded me, and who spoke against remission of fees being-obtained by application to the Guardians, must have forgotten that in 1876 this was precisely the argument used from this side of the House against the proposition made at that time by the very Party now in power, and who insisted that the Guardians were the proper authority to whom application should be made. Really one hardly knows what to expect from the other side of the House. We, however, gladly welcome the fact that so many hon. Members opposite are throwing aside the views they held in 1876 and 1885, and are coming to adopt the views held by Liberals in those years. The Liberal Party welcome this measure, halting and lame as it is, because it goes to a certain extent in the direction which has been urged so often by many Members of the Liberal Party. We recognise in this measure a step which must lead to universal free education, to the abolition of denominational education, and to the certainty of general popular control, and it will be supported by Liberal Members generally, not only because it gives to a certain extent what we want, but because it will undoubtedly lead to the acquisition of all that we want. I regret, however, that, owing to the late period at which it has been introduced, there will be so little opportunity afforded of discussing many important and thorny questions that may arise.

(10.40.) MAJOR RASCH (Essex, S.E.)

I take the opportunity of saying shortly that I altogether repudiate the attack on the measure made by the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Howorth). As a Member representing an agricultural constituency, I accept the statement of the Vice President of the Council as to the safeguarding of voluntary schools. The hon. Member for Salford has made many Malthusian allusions with which I do not agree, and has made statements on the fecundity of the rural population on which I need not follow him, and, with many mixed metaphors, he has condemned the proposed system of assisted education. I do not think the unfortunate result of some by-elections has had anything to do with the statements of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on free education. As to the charge of inconsistency, my conscience on this point is clear. In 1885 and 1886 I certainly opposed the unauthorised programme and the principle of free education brought forward by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham. I did so because I was certain that, according to the scheme of free education in the unauthorised programme, an enormous sum would be placed on the rates in the agricultural districts, and because the denominational schools would probably be swept away. I should like to induce my hon. Friends the Member for Salford, the Member for Evesham, and the Member for North Islington to accompany me on a visit among my agricultural constituents. I am certain that the politico-economic ideas of those hon. Gentlemen would undergo a change after such a visit. I cannot understand why the congested districts of Ireland should be assisted, and why the agricultural labourers in Essex, for example, should receive no assistance at all. Hon. Members on this side of the House are fond of referring to the desirability of fixing: the agricultural labourer on the soil. Here is an opportunity of fixing the labourer on the land just as much as if he were to be given an allotment or the chance of a small holding.

(10.44.) MR. WADDY (Lincolnshire, Brigg)

I would not have intervened in this Debate but for the allusions which have been made to the opinions entertained by a religious body to which it is my great happiness to belong. We have been told by the hon. Member for North Islington (Mr. Bartley) of some high authority, a certain reverend gentleman whose views tend very much indeed against the adoption of this Bill. I have had occasion previously to protest, as vigorously as I am able to do, against the idea of our being "represented" in this House. Nobody on this side or on the other side has any right to do it; but if it is suggested that any views are entertained by the body to which I belong, it would be better that it should come from somebody who has some dim notion of what he is talking about. The hon. Member for North Islington of this particular topic knows no more than the man in the moon. The reverend gentleman he has mentioned does not represent us. We have through a Committee formulated our views, which may be summarised as being in favour of a School Board in every district. We desire to see the present system of abominable tyranny under which our children suffer when there is only one school, and that a Church school, in the district, swept away. I do not want on this occasion to pile up indignation in any degree, whether in regard to the present or past history of these schools, because we are looking forward to the future. I do not want to spoil our ardent expectations of the future by any of the sad recollections of the past. I am moved by an amount of sympathy which I cannot describe for the calamitous position of hon. Gentlemen opposite. They are quarrelling amongst themselves in a way that is very sad to witness, and what we have got to do is to try as far as we can to compose their unhappy differences and to assist them to pass the Bill. When the substantial measure itself is before the House we on this side will give abundant assistance to the Government to enable them to pass it in spite of all the recalcitrants on their own side. When we come to those matters on which we do not altogether agree, there is no doubt that, voting on political lines, hon. Gentlemen opposite will, whether they like it or not, rally to the support of the Government. I have no doubt that in this way they will carry the objectionable clauses in spite of everything we can do. But we do not much mind. They will only continue for a short time—a very short time indeed. Before long we, availing ourselves of the platform which they have so kindly constructed for us, will take good care to get schools which will be free in every sense—not in regard to pence alone, but in regard to their management and control and the doctrines that are taught in them. The Party opposite are now being forced on in spite of themselves by outside pressure, which they may appear to laugh at, but which they are obeying, and which will result in our getting all that we need for the entire emancipation of the education of the country.

(10.53.) MR. TALBOT (Oxford University)

Through the indulgence of the Chairman the Committee has been allowed to wander over the whole education question on a Motion for considering the Financial Resolution on which the Free Education Bill is to be founded— and in saying that I am not presuming to limit the discretion of the Chair, but merely desire to point out that it is impossible within reasonable limits to deal in anything like completeness with many of the arguments that have been adduced. The hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down appears to know, though I am not quite so sure he understands the present and the past, everything about the future. He says that in a very short time he and his friends will be in Office, and judging from the tone of his observations, we may expect that when he occupies a position on the Treasury Bench he is going to sweep away all the voluntary schools, impose boundless burdens on the ratepayers, and make everybody happy. I do not know whether all these things will happen within the short time the hon. and learned Member anticipates; but if they do, I shall be very glad to congratulate him on the accuracy of his prophecy and the distinction that will come to him at the hands of Her Majesty. It is impossible for me, as a member of the Royal Commission which sat to consider this question, to accept the proposal for free education with a very good grace. The hon. Member for Poplar is the only Member of the House who sat on that Commission who was then in favour of free education. This, however, is not a matter of Party recrimination, for the 23 members on that Commission were by no means all Tories and Reactionaries. [An hon. MEMBER: Most of them were.] There was Dr. Dale; he is not remarkable for his reactionary principles; then there was Cardinal Manning, who, as everyone knows, though he is a great supporter of denominational education, is certainly attached to the Party opposite; there was also Mr. Lyulph Stanley. [An hon. MEMBER: They are all Unionists.] Yes; but it has been said that the Commission was composed of Tories and Reactionaries. There were, I know, Glad-stonians on the Commission; and, at any rate, nearly half of the Commissioners were Liberals. I still hold the view that free education is an unfortunate proposal. But if it is to come, practical politicians should set themselves to consider how best it should come. If it is to come, the best thing is that it should come rationally, and with due regard for the interests and claims of the voluntary schools. The hon. Members for Bradford and Leicester and for Lincolnshire, who have just spoken, were quite frank. They said they would not be content with anything that gives the slightest advantage to denominational schools. To be thus forewarned is to be forearmed. Though, therefore, I do not like free education, still if it is inevitable, the only thing is to get it on the best terms. That is the practical view of the matter. It is asked why stop at 3d.? But will anyone contend that education should be made free up to 9d.? Why should the Public Exchequer be mulcted to pay fees for people who are perfectly well able to pay for themselves? Why should the small shopkeeper and trader and clerk, who send their children to schools where they pay, have to pay for the education of children of parents who are practically as well off as, if not better than, themselves? I am glad that Her Majesty's Government have, at any rate, gone no further than 3d. There is one other consideration which consoles me for the adoption of a principle to which I cannot in theory give my consent. The one thing which weighs upon parents of the humbler class in regard to the education of their children is not the payment of the fees, but the loss of their children's labour. My hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk (Sir E. Birkbeck) has expressed himself as a Magistrate and as a member of a School Board in the sense that fees are the cause of non-attendance; but I am inclined to think that the payment of fees is no great hardship in any but a very few cases, but I think it is generally, as I know it is in the North of England, the loss of labour that is the difficulty. As far as the Bill-will enable these people to bear more cheerfully this hardship, I accept it. But I do not believe that the working classes over the country demand this measure, nor am I sure they will be grateful for it. Nor can I delude myself or help to delude my right hon. Friend with the idea that the measure is going to be any great educational advance. I do not believe that in free schools the children will attend any more regularly, but, without committing myself to the scheme with any cordiality, I do not feel justified in opposing it.

(11.4.) SIR L. PLAYFAIR

I shall postpone a discussion of the Bill from an educational point of view until the Second Reading. As to the question of attendance in free schools, referred to by the hon. Member for the University of Oxford, I may point to the experience in Scotland, where the lower standards alone have been freed. If we compare the annual increment of children under seven years of age in 1889, the last year of fees, with that of 1890, the first year of free education, the increase in these lower standards has been sevenfold since the fees have been remitted, but it has decreased in the upper standards. The hon. Member for Oxford University is opposing all the great traditions of his Church in opposing the principle of the Bill. When schools were introduced into this country by Religious Bodies they were all free. The first body to introduce elementary education to the country was the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, whose schools were all free, as were the Lancastrian schools, afterwards the British and Foreign Society, and the schools of the National Society. It was not for a longtime that these denominationally-established schools took fees, and when they did the fee was but 1d. But the introduction of compulsion by the Act of 1870 had the effect of raising all fees to such an extent that free education has become a necessity. Since that date denominational schools have increased their fees by 28 per cent. I do not agree that free schools are the corollary of compulsion; compulsion could be enforced if the fees were but uniform and moderate. It is the variation in the amount of fees chargeable in different places which has converted me to the advocacy of free education. When a Birmingham operative pays 5s. 7d. a year for the education of his child in a Board school, and when removing to Manchester has to pay 14s. 4d. for similar education, how can you maintain compulsion under such a variation of fees? I believe that the safeguards and the intentions of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council will very rapidly lead to a very general if not a universal free school system. The average fee of the Church schools throughout England is 10s. 7d., and the Government now propose to make a grant of 10s. It is impossible that the school managers will put themselves to the trouble and the expense of collecting the remaining 7d. The voluntary schools will necessarily become free schools in the great majority of cases. I wish to know whether I am to understand that all the schools throughout the country having school fees of a less amount than 10s. are to become free?

SIR W. HART DYKE

Yes.

SIR L. PLAYFAIR

All?

SIR W. HART DYKE

All that receive grants.

SIR L. PLAYFAIR

But what I want to know is, whether a school conducted by clergymen, who object to free education, may decline to receive the 10s., and stand out of the system altogether?

SIR W. HART DYKE

In that case a School Board would be appointed at once.

SIR L. PLAYFAIR

That, then, is an undertaking on the part of the Department; and if that is their intention, there can be no doubt most schools will soon become free, and I want hon. Members sitting on the Opposition side of the House to understand that. Even now 83 per cent. of the schools will become free, and that will be a great step towards free education; in fact, it will be difficult to stop any denominational school from becoming free. At present the average school fee of Church schools is only 7d. above the 10s. grant, while that of Roman Catholic and Board schools is under that sum, so these three great classes of schools at once become free, leaving out only exceptional cases such as Manchester, Preston, Bury, Ramsgate, and Stockport. If we have reached that point, let us see what this Bill will do and why we should support it. It is a great point gained that the upper standards are to be freed. The present evil of our elementary education is that to a great extent we free the scholar for labour when he has passed Standard IV., one so low that the thin veneer of education is rubbed off in three or four years of the wear and tear of life. The general intelligence of the country is rapidly growing, and you will find a great accession of scholars in the higher standards, and a future development in the intelligence of the people. There is no country in the world where a good education is so necessary as it is in this country. If you consider our commercial relations with the rest of the world, our restricted area, and our large population you will see how necessary it is that our people should be better educated than the people of any other country. By allowing children to go out to labour at the early age we do we place ourselves behind all other European nations except two—Italy and Spain— and I hope that before the House of Commons parts with this Bill they will insist upon the parents, upon whom such a great boon is being conferred, being compelled to allow their children to remain at school for an additional year. We should say to the people, "We are offering you a great boon; we are practically taking from you the fees you are accustomed to pay; we are giving yon free education, not only for one child, but for all your children who go to school, and we ask you in return to assist us, in spite of the opposition of one or two counties, in the interest of the well-being of the whole community, by keeping your children longer at school. We assure you that in this way you will increase the education and intelligence of the country, and enable it to hold its own as the leading manufacturing country of the world." Raising the compulsory age from 10 to 11 was recommended by the Royal Commission on Education, and that limit should have been adopted in this Bill if the Government have not the force of their convictions to raise it to 12, which our representatives advocated, with the approval of the Government, at the Berlin Congress.

(11.19.) COLONEL NOLAN (Galway, N.)

I do not intend to interfere in regard to the English aspects of this Bill, though I think the Irish Members have a right to interfere, for I remember Mr. Disraeli once saying in this House that the Irish Members were the natural representatives of the Roman Catholics of England, and I believe this Bill very seriously affects the Roman Catholics of England. I rise to ask what are to be the parallel steps taken for Ireland in this matter of free education?

THE CHAIRMAN

That is not relevant to the Resolution before the Committee.

COLONEL NOLAN

Very well, whilst I bow to your ruling, Mr. Courtney, I will point out some difficulties in which I feel. I have got to vote money on this English question in utter blindness as to what is being done in my own country on this subject. I am not even allowed to ask whether we are going to get any money at all in Ireland. If there were a larger number of Irish Members here I should be inclined to move to report Progress, because I am not allowed to speak about Ireland on this Bill. The Irish Members are placed in a most difficult and extraordinary position. We are ordered to say blindly "Yes" or "No" on this English question, and we are not even allowed to ask what is to be done in Ireland. While I support the general principle of the Bill, which is to support primary education in all schools, voluntary and otherwise, I find myself in a position in which I shall be obliged possibly to oppose certain stages of the Bill until I can get some answer from the Government on questions which I am not allowed to raise.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order! The hon. and gallant Gentleman is repeating himself on subjects altogether foreign to the Resolution before the Committee. There are proper occasions for obtaining the information he desires.

COLONEL NOLAN

Very well, Mr. Courtney, I shall take every opportunity on other occasions of obtaining the information I have been unable to obtain upon this Resolution.

(11.24.) Mr. SYDNE GEDGE (Stockport)

As Member for a borough which rejoices in not having a School Board, but of which a large part of the population is Nonconformist, and having had recent communications with my constituents on the subject of the Government proposals, I wish to say a few words. At recent meetings with my constituents I ventured to prophesy to a certain extent what the Bill of the Government would be, and they were very well satisfied indeed, and hoped I would use my own discretion in supporting such a Bill, because they thought a measure framed on such lines was worthy of all support. I am bound to say that the Bill of my right hon. Friend has gone beyond my prophecy: and if my constituents were satisfied with what I predicted, I am sure they will be still more satisfied with the Bill itself. I am one of those who in 1885 undoubtedly opposed free education as I then understood it. I did so on the general economical ground that free education was, after all, but a sort of outdoor relief, and on the ground that parents would care less for education for which they paid nothing, and that the attendance was likely to be less regular. I also opposed it on the still stronger ground, that if, as was then proposed, you covered the country with Board schools only, the result would be most hurtful to education in three respects, because it would be so exceedingly costly that in all probability there would be a natural reaction against the system, also because you would have one level of uniform State education without variety and without rivalry or competition, and, lastly, because you would take away from the parents the security that their children would receive at school such religious instruction as they wish them to have. I reckon that if such a system of free education were adopted the additional cost to this country would be over £6,000,000 a year. The Board schools, having the rates behind them, do not manage matters as economically as the voluntary schools do. If all the children now educated in Church of England schools were transferred to Board schools they would cost 9s. 1d. each more than they do now, the Roman Catholics would cost 11s. 5d. each more, the Wesleyans 8s. 7½d. more, and the children in the British and other undenominational schools 6s. 8¼d. more. Multiplying these respective figures by the number of children in these different schools last year, I find that the total additional cost of education would be 3,263,917. If you add £659,383, as representing the fees now paid to the Board schools, yon can get a total of £3,923,300. To that you must add 4 per cent. on a sum, which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) has modestly put at £50,000,000, for the provision of school buildings, and you will then get up to a total of £6,000,000 a year of additional cost. If you add the present Government grant of over £3,200,000, and the £1,300,000 odd paid by the rates, you get a total of £10,500,000. An expenditure of this kind would be fatal to education. It is said that Board schools are more efficient than voluntary schools; but let us see what the Government grant amounts to in the different schools. On an average, the grant per head to the Church of England schools is 17s. 3¼d; to the Roman Catholic schools. 17s. 2½d.; to the Wesleyan schools 17s. 10¾d.; and to the British and other schools 17s. 9d., giving an average of 17s. 6½ d. per head. To the Board schools it is 18s. 5¾d. Considering all the disadvantages there are in the want of funds for providing sufficient apparatus, together with salaries for competent masters, and so forth, I say that at the present moment the voluntary schools show results at least as good as those of the Board schools, in spite of the jeers of hon. Members opposite. The only other point to which I wish to call the attention of the House is the idea which has been expressed that free education will lead to early marriages, because parents will have the burden of educating their children taken from them. I have come to the conclusion that the result will be just the opposite of that, because I cannot think that any young couple ever think of postponing their marriage on the ground that six or seven years hence they may have children for whom they may have to pay school fees; nor do I think they are likely to hurry on their marriage because they will be freed from such a charge. What they look to is the immediate expense attending marriage, and if you make them pay their fair share of the general cost of free education at once, you will be much more likely to stop early marriages than by any fear they may entertain as to the chances of the future. I look on this proposal as one that will benefit the thrifty and the prudent. If it were simply a scheme to increase the facilities offered to the pauper classes for the remission of school fees, I should be opposed to it. I have had much experience of the work of the London School Board for the last 20 years, and I have seen a great deal of the hardship inflicted on parents through having to submit their private affairs to the investigation of the Guardians or Board Committees in order to obtain a remission of their fees; but the Bill to be founded on this Resolution will encourage the thrifty rather than the thriftless, because in the case of every one who chooses to allow the fees to be deducted they will not be charged. The other day, when I was in Somersetshire, a labouring man with a large family said to me the hardest thing in his life was to have to pay 1s. 1d. per week for the education of his children. I am certain that such a man would be only too delighted to hail this proposal, so that he may feel that without submitting his affairs to the investigation of public officials he will in future be able to get the benefit of free education for his children.

(11.38.) THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,) Strand, Westminster

I desire at this hour to appeal to the Committee to give the vote at once. There will be many other opportunities of discussing the matter after the Bill is in our hands. Until we have the Bill before us and read it, we are at a disadvantage in discussing the proposals of the Government, which have been explained with much ability by my right hon. Friend. Certainly, so far as the Government are concerned, they have no objection to make to the reception given to the Bill. The Government have made it clear that the measure of free education which they desire to press on the consideration of the House is one which is not intended to impair the efficiency of voluntary schools. They have no desire nor intention to destroy a portion of our educational system, which has done excellent work in the past, and may do excellent work in the future. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds referred to the fact that 83 per cent. of all the children in schools in England will at once receive free education. This is a consideration which will, I hope, conduce to facilitate the passage of the measure, and lead the Committee now to allow the Resolution to be agreed to, so that the Government may be in a position to bring in the Bill to-morrow.

(11.41.) MR. T. ELLIS (Merionethshire)

I shall not enter into the question of the pledges hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House have given to the country on this subject, but I should like to ask a question or two "with regard to what is intended to be done in relation to the extension of free education to Wales. The fees paid in the elementary schools in Wales amount to little short of £80,000 a year, which is equal to an average fee of 8s. per child. According to the Government scheme of 10s. per head, Wales should receive, not £79,000, but nearer £100,000, as there are nearly 200,000 children in average attendance at the Welsh schools. I ask the right hon. Gentleman, will the money be merely handed over to relieve the School Board rates, or to do away with the necessity of voluntary subscriptions to the so-called voluntary schools? If he desires that the money shall be given to do away with the voluntary payments, I can promise him strenuous opposition in Wales. We want the money for the bettering of education, and not for the lightening of the rates, and certainly not for doing away with the voluntary subscriptions. We have been told by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham that the intended Bill will make no addition to the income of the voluntary schools. Now, I will take just a few cases at random to show what will be the case in Wales. In one school in Denbighshire, with an average attendance of 282 children, fees £109, and subscriptions £38, making a total of £147, there is an endowment of £64, and a Government grant of £245. The new Government grant will be £141, making a total received from the public of £450, so that for every 1s. in future given by subscribers this school will receive from public money 75s.: in a school in Carmarthenshire, with an average attendance of 155, with fees of £41, and subscriptions £8, the new grant would be £77 10s., whereas the fees and subscriptions are only £49. Will the fees be paid by the Government and the subscriptions done away with, and about £28 handed over by the Treasury to the clergyman to do what he likes with? In a third school, in Carnarvonshire, the fees £33, subscriptions £13, and average attendance 162,the new grant would mean a clear gain of £34 14s. 3d. If all this money is to go to the clergyman to do what he likes with, I call it a more than wanton waste of public money. Are the Government going to do away with the necessity for subscriptions and, at the same time, to hand over sums of public money, varying from £5 to £30 and £50, to the clergymen of these parishes without giving the ratepayers or the parents, the great majority of whom are Nonconformists, any control whatsoever?

(11.46.) MR. HUNTER (Aberdeen,N.)

Before the right hon. Gentleman replies, I should like to ask him with respect to the sum set aside for the half year— £920,000. Next year double that sum is to be allowed; but the total is deficient by no less than £500,000. The Government propose to exclude children under five years of age, and that will save £175,000. Still, there is a deficiency of £390,000, and I should like to know whether there is any other scheme which will explain that amount?

SIR W. HART DYKE

I can only inform the hon. Member that the amount has been most carefully calculated by the most able officials; and I believe it will be found that in the aggregate the sum named by my right hon. Friend will be sufficient. With regard to the points raised by the hon. Member for Merionethshire, I can only repeat what I have stated before. It is perfectly true that in Wales, where the fees are low, and great sacrifices have hitherto been made both on the part of ratepayers and subscribers, relief will be given to the amount the hon. Member has stated, and the relief will be shared partly by the ratepayers and partly by the managers; but the hon. Member has made a large assumption when he suggests that the money will go into the clergyman s pockets. The first duty of the Education Department, however, will be to secure greater effort in all these country schools; and, so far as I am concerned, I am prepared to pledge myself and the Department that if this measure is passed the educational condition of?country schools must be improved, and the excuse of poverty will no longer be permitted. The Government have indicated what their intentions are, and at this late hour I hope I shall be forgiven if I do not further extend my observations. I can only say, as far as I am concerned, that I am satisfied with the discussion that has taken place, and I feel assured, from the attitude which hon. Members opposite have taken, that they will be able to discuss the measure when it comes before the House in a sensible and practical way.

MR. SEXTON (Belfast, W.)

I wish to ask why the grant for England and Wales has been separated in the Resolution from the grant for Ireland and Scotland, and how long it will be before the Government will state their intentions with respect to Ireland?

MR. W. H. SMITH

It would not have been regular to include Ireland and Scotland in the present Resolution. If the hon. Member will ask the question to-morrow or Thursday, the Chief Secretary will make a statement in regard to Ireland, and a statement will also be made in respect to Scotland.

MR. SEXTON

I suppose no long interval will elapse?

MR. W. H. SMITH

Certainly not.

COLONEL NOLAN

Can the right hon. Gentleman state roughly the number of children who will be dealt with under the Act, and the proximate cost?

MR. W. H. SMITH

The statement has been made in the House before. I have not the figures at my fingers' ends; but if the hon. and gallant Gentleman will ask a question to-morrow the information shall be given to him.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved," That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of a Fee Grant in aid of the cost of Elementary Education in England and Wales, and to make further provision with regard to Education in Public Elementary Schools."

Resolution to be reported Tomorrow, at the commencement of Public Business.