EDUCATION IN CHURCH OF ENGLAND ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS.

HC Deb 28 May 1900 vol 83 cc1525-61

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH (Flintshire)

I rise to complain of the arbitrary manner in which the Government has confiscated the rights of private Members. I had the first place to-morrow with a question of great importance to the Protestant population of this country;†but by adjourning the House to-day the Government has taken away my right and the rights of millions of people who were interested in this question. I never knew a more arbitrary exercise of power in this House. The First Lord excused his action on the ground that I could discuss the same question on the Education Vote—in fact, he gave me what I consider to be a solemn pledge—but I have learned from the Chairman of Committees that I cannot do so, as my motion involved alterations in the law; and so the Government have contrived that as † The following notice stood on the Paper in the name of Mr. Samuel Smith for the 29th May: " To call attention to the growing practice of using Church of England Elementary Schools for the inculcation of sacerdotal doctrine and ritual; and to move, That in view of the rapid increase of sacerdotal and ritualistic teaching in the Anglican Church, especially in the rural parishes, and of the absolute control of the religious teaching which the clergy exercise in voluntary schools through their power of appointing and dismissing the teachers, through their diocesan inspectors, through requiring attendance at ritualistic services, and otherwise; also in view of the fact that large numbers of Protestant children are obliged by law to attend these schools without sufficient protection from the conscience clause, this House resolves that no system of education can be satisfactory where State support is given and compulsory attendance required without representative local control, and where the rights of teachers, parents, and children are not fully safeguarded. far as they can they should suppress debate all this session on any burning question arising out of ritualism in the National Church and schools. I appeal to private Members, whoso rights have been ruthlessly confiscated this session, to resent this constant invasion of their rights, which are gradually being extirpated altogether. we have only had six or seven Tuesdays this session. Three times the Government have tried to take from me the right I possessed of bringing forward motions on that day, and I protest against the abolition of the right of free speech, which is fast degrading the mother of Parliaments to be a mere machine! to register the decrees of Government. Never was there less excuse for taking away the rights of private Members. This is the idlest Parliament I ever sat in. The Government can scarcely keep the House employed, and it is giving double the usual length of holidays at Whitsuntide, as it did at Easter; yet never have the rights of private Members been so ruthlessly confiscated. I claim the right to lay before the House briefly the grievances I meant to bring forward on the day that was filched from mo. I think I am within my rights in doing so, and I ask the indulgence of the House while I state why the Protestant people of this country are indignant at the abuse of Voluntary schools and training colleges to stamp out the work of the Reformation. It is not far from the truth to say that there is a wide-spread conspiracy to use this vast engine of education to carry out the designs of the Ritualistic section of the Church, who have gradually got control of almost the whole of the huge machinery of education, and are using it in a manner quite contrary to the convictions of the parents of the great mass of the children who are compelled to attend those schools. This work is carried on with the same subtlety that has marked all the tactics of the Oxford movement. The seat of this conspiracy lies in the training colleges which are practically the only entrance to the teaching profession in the Church of England, and these colleges as a rule refuse admission to Nonconformists except they renounce their faith. Even pupil teachers are not admitted into most Voluntary schools without signing letters in which they agree to abandon the faith of their parents. [Sir JOHN GORST dissented.] I see the right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. I will refer the right hon. Gentleman to a fact within my own knowledge. The Wesleyan body have made inquiries and have found that out of 986 schools to which their children applied, there were only eighty-eight in which they had not to enter into an engagement similar to the one I have described. Here is a letter a Wesleyan girl of fourteen years of age had to sign before she was admitted to one of these training colleges— I being of the age of fourteen years, and now living with my parents at whose signatures are here appended, do, with their consent, declare that I intend finally to separate from the Wesleyan body and return to the Church of England, and that I will therefore not attend or assist in the services, school, or meetings of the Wesleyans, will also present myself before the Bishop of the diocese as a candidate for confirmation, and will henceforth be and remain in communion with the Church of England, and that I will devote myself to the profession of schoolmistress in the schools of the Church of England, and to the preliminary training required by such office. I promise also that I will keep a duplicate copy of this declaration to show to anyone who may desire me to act in any way inconsistent with this declaration. Signed in the presence of Parents Witness their signatures Countersigned Vicar of

THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION (Sir J. GORST, Cambridge University)

Can the hon. Gentleman say where this took place?

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

I cannot name the place, but I can tell the right hon. Gentleman whence I obtained my information. It was at a deputation to the Duke of Devonshire a week or two ago; and the statement was made with the authority of the Wesleyan body, and I understand they are prepared to give the particulars to the Vice-President if he desires to have them.

SIR J. GORST

I am very desirous of having them.

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

Very well; I will see that they are sent. I am told that in 900 of those schools similar declarations were required. But the grievance does not end here. Formerly the teaching of the Church of England was Protestant, and differed little from that of the Protestant Nonconformists. It was based upon Holy Scripture, and when the Education Act of 1870 was passed it was taken for granted by all that religious education in Voluntary schools and colleges was essentially Biblical education. The Liberal Party of that day would never have given complete control over the education of half the children of the country to Anglican clergy had they dreamt that they would use it to stamp out the principles of the Reformation, and reimpose priestly domination. But this is what is now being done in these schools.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR, Manchester, E.)

In which schools?

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

The Voluntary schools.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Give a case.

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

I will give some specimens if the right hon. Gentleman will wait a moment. I would like first of all to give an admirable definition —to which the House will listen with much interest, as it comes from the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House himself—of what these clergy are doing, and the kind of doctrine they are teaching the children of this country. This is what the First Lord of the Treasury wrote a short time ago in the North American Review— A section (I believe a relatively small one) —that is the only point I dispute in this quotation—

LORD HUGH CECIL (Greenwich)

I rise to a point of order. I see the hon. Gentleman has a motion down for the 19th June with reference to ritualism in the Church of England. I ask your ruling, Sir, whether he is not now entering upon that subject.

* MR. SPEAKER

I had observed that notice of motion, but it did not seem to mo to be directed to the kind of religious education given in voluntary schools and training colleges—that being the point the hon. Member is now discussing.

LORD HUGH CECIL

I understood the hon. Gentleman was going into the general ritualistic question. He was quoting from an article by my right hon. friend, who certainly did not write about the schools.

* MR. SPEAKER

I will follow the speech of the hon. Member; but so far he does not appear to me to have touched the ground covered by the notice of motion to which reference has been made.

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

My object is this—that the admirable description given by the First Lord of the Treasury enables me to point out how the clergy are controlling the education of this country, in a sense entirely different to what I would call the authorised teaching of the. Church of England, according to the decisions given by the Archbishops. I will only quote one sentence from the right hon. Gentleman's article— A section (I believe a relatively small one) of the High Church clergy seem bent on proving their Catholicism by embodying as much of Roman ritual and observing as much of the Roman doctrine as is compatible with remaining in a communion which the Church of Rome has declared to be schismatic. My argument is this: that these clergymen have control of a large number of Voluntary schools—in some places almost entire control—and have invented a system of inspection whereby the teachers are all brought under an extreme ritualistic standard, or else lose their positions. It is not now as it used to be, when a very large amount of discretion was left to the teachers. They are now screwed up by the diocesan inspectors, who introduce text - books into the training colleges of the most extreme kind. I find, for instance, that the Rev. Prebendary Reynolds, who is the Archbishop's inspector of training colleges and the chief diocesan inspector for London, has published a handbook of Church history, which is full of the utmost animus against the Reformation. This great text book for training the teachers who are to train nearly three millions of English children instructs them that— the Reformation afforded an opportunity for every bad man to let loose every vile passion" (p. 31). I ask hon. Members opposite whether it is a proper thing that young men and women in the most impressionable period of their lives, and nine-tenths of whom are Protestants, should be taught such a travesty of history as that. Then the text-book states— An attack was made upon the old altars instigated by Bishop Ridley. Under such influences as those it was no wonder that in the second Prayer Book of Edward VI. (1552) the English Church reached its low-water mark" (p. 42). The reign of Queen Mary, generally known as "Bloody Mary," Prebendary Reynolds passes over without even hinting that a single Protestant martyr was put to death. He states that during her life— most of the extreme Reformers escaped to the Continent and spent a cat-and-dog life at Strasburg and Frankfort, or plotted further reforms at Geneva or Zurich. The men he holds up to admiration are Laud and Charles I.; the men he vilifies are the great reformers and Puritans. But this book is a joke to one published by the Rev. J. Sidney Boucher, late principal of the Training College at Carnarvon. It is filled with abuse of Protestant dissenters from end to end. It contains, I assume, the substance of his addresses for twenty years to young men and women under his control, and is issued for use in other training colleges. From its flowers of rhetoric I cull a few gems— Yet there can be no doubt that schism is as deadly a sin against God and his law of unity as are murder and adultery against the Sixth and Seventh Commandments. And so they are classed by the Apostles in many such passages as Gal. v. 20, etc. Dissent does in fact charge God with stupidity or cruelty, or both. Dissent does implicitly make God to be the Author of Evil. Dissent does naturally and inevitably pave the way to atheism. It follows, as a matter of course, that sacraments, as ministered by Dissenters, cannot be anything more than a sacrilegious outward show, and as much a mockery and a delusion as grace without meat, a shell without a kernel, or a knife without a blade. This will be strong enough even for the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich. Here is another extract— The Bible is emphatically the Church's Book, to which Dissenters have no more right than have deserters to the Drill and Text Book of the Army from which they have seceded. There is one statement so astonishing that I hesitate to quote it.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

What is the book from which the hon. Member is quoting, and is it authorised?

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

It is a book written by the late Principal of the Training College at Carnarvon, entitled "Manual of Doctrine and Practice," and it contains the substance of the lectures he delivered to the teachers under his control. I ask if a single hon. Member will approve of the following statement— The soul-starvation thus resulting has naturally caused that sad loss of moral and spiritual tone so painfully conspicuous among the various sects, and has reduced them from 'religious societies' to mere 'political clubs ' for the dissemination of unbelieving Radicalism, the creed of ignorance and vice, of knavish demagogues and the criminal classes —an incendiary system which aims at the goods of the rich, not the good of the poor, and which yet, in their envious hatred of the Church, dissenting leaders are not ashamed to propagate as gospel truth—to carry out their godless purposes. The whole book is written in that style from beginning to end, and I would not believe it had been written by any man occupying the position of the author if I had not seen it. These training colleges receive from the Government £200,000, they are exempt from all inspection by the Education Department, and any kind of travesty of history may be taught in them. I think it is high time that the country should know the kind of teaching given in them to teachers who will have to teach 3,000,000 of the children of England. To show how tightly the ecclesiastical rope is drawn round the teachers, I may mention that no less than eleven of the diocesan inspectors for religious instruction are members of the English Church Union, and the teachers of the National schools are obliged to give such instruction as will secure their approval, otherwise they are in danger of dismissal from their schools. One teacher in a National school wrote to mo that the diocesan inspector came into his school to test the religious instruction of the children. The question he put was, "Who forgives sin? " and the answer the children gave was, "God." The inspector was not satisfied with that, and said, " Is that all?" and at last he required the poor children to say, " And the priest."

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

What is the name of the school?

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

The teacher would probably be dismissed if it were known that I had quoted him in this House. Formerly the teachers were allowed latitude, as all teachers should, but now a system of inspection has been invented. Eleven of these inspectors are members of the English Church Union and followers of Lord Halifax, whom the First Lord of the Treasury designated as one who regards "the history of the Church of England for the last three centuries as an unprofitable parenthesis in the history of the Church Universal." These inspectors visit the schools twice a year, and they require poor little children to answer the most difficult questions about sacerdotalism, the sacraments, and the absolute necessity of confessing to a priest in order to obtain forgiveness. It is remarkable that the two books from which I have quoted scarcely refer at all to the teaching of the Scriptures. They are all about questions of church ceremony, sacramental powers, the apostolic succession, and such like. I ask the House, was it ever designed by Parliament that enormous sums of money should be given to train teachers who have half the children of the country under their control—800,000 of them children of Protestant Nonconformists— and that they should have their minds poisoned against the very children whom they have to train? I say this is a crime against justice and charity, and is unworthy of a free country. Many of the schools are under the control of the squire and the parson, and a parent who withdrew his children would probably lose his employment. That is the position and the difficulty, and on it I intend to take the decision of the House fully and broadly, and not on any incidental point. The fact is that in many cases the children in those Voluntary schools are marched from school to church on week days to be present at the celebration of Mass, or what is practically the same thing, " Children's Eucharists," and all the children are required to go.

SIR J. GORST

Were you there?

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

Let me say if I were to give all the facts I have accumulated on this question the House would howl me down, for it would take mo two or three hours to go over them. Here is a single case, that of the notorious Hensall-cum-Heck in the diocese of York. The National schools are the only schools in the parish, and they are attended by the children of Dissenters as well as of Churchmen. There was at the beginning of the year in the schools an altar with candles and crucifix, and the children were taken to church every Thursday morning at nine o'clock to hear Mass.

LORD HUGH CECIL

Was that by the late or present incumbent?

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

It was by the incumbent who had been in the parish for fourteen years, and who left the Church of England two months ago and joined the Church of Rome. I may further toll the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich that the facts of the case had been laid before the Archbishop of York over and over again during the fourteen years that that incumbent indulged in those ritualistic practices; but the Archbishop did not pay the slightest attention to the representations made to him. It was only two months ago that the Archbishop asked the incumbent whether he could not see his way to resign; and he did resign, and went over to the Church of Home. Hero is what the children were taught in these schools. They were taught to bow on one knee on the high altar before the "reserved Sacrament." They were taught the Rosary, and they were taken to church to the "Blessing and Imposition of Ashes," and some of them were smudged with the ashes. I may mention that, in the Sunday school, they are obliged to learn the Roman Catholic catechism, and the boys and girls all receive the "Children's Pictorial Mass Book," with the imprimatur of "Henry Edward, Cardinal Archbishop." It may be said that the Sunday school was nothing to do with the day school, but the teachers in the day schools are always found to be teachers in the Sunday school. It is part of the agreement forced upon them. They pass from the day school to the Sunday school, where they teach Roman Catholic doctrines, and when they return to the day school on Monday is it likely that they will teach any others? Certainly not. Another case I may mention incidentally is that of St. Bartholomew's at Brighton, whore 2,000 children from the National schools are inarched once a week to hear Mass in a Church of England school. The Archbishop of York stated in his Diocesan Magazine for March 19th, after the resignation of the Vicar of Hensall-cum Heck, that Mr. Bryan had "laboured for fourteen years with exceptional devotion and earnestness." That leads mo to say that I do not for one moment doubt that many of these men are earnest and devout. That is shown by their strenuous lives and by their devotion to duty among the poor. I agree with the First Lord of the Treasury in his article in the North American Review, that in many respects they are really pious and good men, but they are teaching a different religion from that held by the people of England, and they ought not to be in the Church of England. The Education Act of 1870 would never have been allowed to pass through this House by Nonconformist Members if it had been understood that we were handing over the education of the rural population of England to clergymen who in their hearts were Roman Catholic priests. We handed over the education of three millions of children to the Church of England, under the belief that it was a Protestant church. The Nonconformists had no great objection to the differences between the great Protestant Church of England and the Nonconformist churches. All of them look to the Scriptures as their supreme guide, but none of us ever dreamed, when we agreed to hand over the education of three millions of children, that we were going to poison the minds of both the teachers and the scholars with the practices and doctrines I have been quoting, such as that Dissenters are all going to hell, and that they have never been properly baptised. The time was come when we must re-arrange the whole educational system of the country. We have either got to do that or we shall see some consequences which will be very painful, and very difficult to deal with indeed. There are two religions taught in the Church of England at the present time, which are absolutely opposed to each other. The one is based on the right of private judgment, and the other wholly built upon the authority of the priests. There is no reconciliation between them possible. Most of the hon. Members who hear me know the truth of what I am saying, and they themselves do not believe in the priestly system. They must know that this state of things is a great injustice to Nonconformists, and to three-fourths of the Protestants of England.

* MR. SPEAKER

Order, order! The hon. Gentleman is trenching on the ground referred to in a notice of motion on the Paper.

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

I appeal to the Unionist party to act up to the spirit of the resolution passed by this House on this matter, and only objected to by the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich and a small group of his way of thinking. That resolution was as follows— That this House deplores the spirit of lawlessness shown by certain members of the Church of England, and confidently hopes that the Ministers of the Crown will not recommend any clergyman for ecclesiastical preferment unless they are satisfied that he will loyally obey the bishops and the Prayer-book, and the law as declared by the courts which have jurisdiction in matters ecclesiastical. I ask the House to go a little further, and say that no such lawless clergy shall have the control of the Voluntary schools of the country. It is there the real mischief is done; it is amongst the children tenfold more than amongst the adults that the mischief is done. When you got young children of ten or twelve years of ago, and threaten them with dire penalties in the next world unless they confer their sins to the priest, you are poisoning their minds, and indulging in practices by which Protestantism will be well nigh stamped out. I am persuaded that three-fourths of the hon. Members I am addressing believe in the bottom of their hearts all I am saying. I am in favour of keeping religious education in the schools. I believe that to a God-fearing people the elementary teaching of religion is exceedingly valuable, and I shall be sorry indeed to see it driven out of the schools. In this secular and unbelieving age it is necessary that everything should be done to save the children from irreligious influences. But if the religious education of the children is to pass wholly into the hands of a priestly caste, who are out of sympathy with the beliefs of the British people, there will be such an outburst of popular indignation that our whole system of primary education will be entirely sccularised; and I would regard that as the greatest misfortune that could befall this country. I say this is the most prominent question of the day. It is obscured for the moment by the war in South Africa; but that will pass away, and the question will remain whether England is to be unprotestantised, or whether the deepest convictions of the nation are to be respected. I insist that this House should not be deprived of a free discussion of this subject; and in order to enable the House to express its opinion upon it, I beg to move as an Amendment to the motion of the First Lord of the Treasury the insertion of the word "to-morrow" after the word "rising."

Amendment proposed— After the word ' rising' to insert the word ' to-morrow.'"—(Mr. Samuel Smith.)

Question proposed, "That the word ' to-morrow' be there inserted."

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I rise at once to follow the hon. Gentleman, for two reasons. The first reason is that he prefaced his speech by a personal attack on myself.

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

Not an attack —a comment.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The hon. Gentleman and I differ in the meaning we attach to words. I call it an attack—-a personal attack on myself; he calls it a comment. And, in the second place, I rise at once because I do not think that the motion for the adjournment of the House is a very convenient occasion for a long discussion on matters however important. It would raise more than one issue of great importance to which we cannot give the necessary time, and some control should be exercised by hon. Members as to the time occupied by each topic. The hon. Gentleman's criticism, as he was pleased to call it, on the arrangement of business in this House appears to be based on the right of private Members in general, and his own rights in particular, as regards the day on which the House should rise. The hon. Gentleman succeeded in the ballot in getting to-morrow for his motion, and he seems to think it not only a personal insult to himself, but also an outrage on the rights of private Members, that the holidays should begin on Monday night instead of Wednesday or Thursday. Never was such a pretension made in this House before. The hon. Gentleman says that the rights of private Members are being gradually extinguished. Private Members have had more opportunities this session than they have had for many sessions in recent times, and they have shown their appreciation of the opportunities given them, I think, in the most wise way they could show it, by counting out the House at 8 o'clock and going home comfortably to dinner. Then the hon. Gentleman comes down to the House and professes to i represent an oppressed and ill-used class— oppressed by the tyranny of the Government, which, in his own graceful expression, had turned the House into a machine for registering its own decrees. I hope the hon. Gentleman will learn more moderation in his criticisms in future, and I confess the preface he made did not give me a high idea of the candid spirit in which he was going to approach his main topic. What was that main topic? It was in part an attack upon those who, being members, or professing to be members, of the Church of England, hold doctrines which I certainly find it very difficult to reconcile with the doctrines of the Church of England, and which, I am afraid, in some cases, are held by persons whose loyalty to the Church of England is very questionable. That was the general text of the hon. Gentleman, and no doubt it is a text which will always find favour in this House, where the great bulk of Members are strongly opposed to the particular school of theology which the hon. Gentleman is attacking. But, not content with this vague, general attack on this particular section of the Church of England, the hon. Gentleman made a specific proposal with regard to our system of education, which was none other" than the modest suggestion that the whole of the Act of 1870 should be upset, that the whole system of Voluntary schools should be brought to a summary conclusion, and that we should adopt a plan which he himself denounced— namely, that of purely secular education. That was the thesis the hon. Gentleman put forward, that was the conclusion to which he asked the House to arrive. Anything more preposterous than the making of such a suggestion on a motion for the adjournment of the House, or even on a Tuesday evening, I can hardly imagine, and I cannot believe that any hon. Gentleman, whatever view he takes of the ritualistic question, would really concur with the hon. Gentleman's suggestion. But that suggestion, after all, is based on a fundamental confusion as to our system of Voluntary schools. It has never been pretended that under our system of Voluntary schools the teaching given in every Voluntary school was in accordance with what I may call the average religious views of the community. On the contrary, as the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, under our Voluntary school system it is specifically intended and contrived that Roman Catholics should be able to have Voluntary schools. Does the hon. Gentleman object to that?

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

No, I do not object to that, because we do not send to them Protestant children. They are simply for the benefit of Roman Catholics. What I complain of is that these ritualistic schools receive vast numbers of Protestant children who are compelled to go to them.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The hon. Gentleman is entirely mistaken. There is no distinction whatever between Roman Catholic Voluntary schools and Protestant Voluntary schools, between Church of England schools and Wesleyan schools, in the particulars of which he speaks. It may happen, and probably does happen, that there are more Church of England schools in parishes where no other schools exist. That is the more common case; I grant that; but the other case is distinctly contemplated, and plenty of Protestant children, under our present system, go to Roman Catholic Voluntary schools.

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

Very few, and they are very much objected to.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The hon. Gentleman is mistaken. I made the accurate statement that there are many Protestant children who go to Roman Catholic schools, and in Ireland a Protestant child, except in the north of Ireland, has never any chance of going to a school which is not under the management of Roman Catholics, and probably of the Roman Catholic priest. Ninety-five out of 100 of the children are Roman Catholics. But the evils of that system, in so far as it has got evils, are obviated by the conscience Clause. The hon. Gentleman says the Conscience Clause is no protection He did not give us one atom of proof of that contention. I interrupted him more than once to ask for specific cases, because it all turns on authenticated cases. It not only turns on authenticated cases, but on the proportion of such authenticated cases to the total number. The hon. Gentleman is singularly unsuccessful in his cases. The only case he gave, as far as I remember, was one which is no longer a case—a case which has come to an end, a case in which the offending clergyman has ceased to be the clergyman of the parish and has joined the communion with which, I dare say, he has been much more in sympathy than with the Church of England. But even in that case I did not make out that the hon. Gentleman alleged that the Con-science Clause was without effect, or a dead letter. Does he think it was violated in that case?

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

What I said was that in this particular case the children had to go to Mass once a week, and as a rule those who refused to go were so penalised, were made so to suffer in many ways, and their lives were made so miserable, that they were compelled to go to Mass.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I absolutely disbelieve that statement, and if the hon. Gentleman has any proof of it, it is his bounden duty to bring it before the Education Department. A greater scandal than that of compelling children, against the wish of their parents, to attend religious services or even to be taught doctrines of which these parents disapprove I cannot imagine. It is directly contrary to the whole spirit of the Education Act, it is contrary to the law of the land, and the hon. Gentleman, instead of coming down here and making vague declarations upon an occasion like this, should bring before the Education Department, before this House, and before the country the specific cases in which the clergy are guilty of this gross dereliction of public duty and this open violation of the law of the land. I do not say that such cases do not exist, because there are a large number of Voluntary schools throughout the country, and here and there errors and breaches of the law may occur, but I am perfectly certain that they are very few; and the hon. Gentleman would have done bettor if, instead of telling us that he has so many cases that the House would be kept up all night if he gave them, he had given us one or two authenticated cases which would bear examination.

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

I brought a similar case last year before the Vice-President of the Council of Education in my own constituency. I told the right hon. Gentleman that in the town of Flint the vicar had read out from the pulpit the names of the child; en who did not attend a certain service, and had written to some of the employers asking them to dismiss their parents.

SIR J. GORST

I cannot allow the hon. Member to say that. That is not a correct representation.

AN HON. MEMBER: What is?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The hon. Gentleman is most earnest and sincere in the cause he advocates. But he is credulity itself, if he will forgive my saying so; he is incorrigible. I have always wished to pin him to facts—but I have always failed to do so--because I think that if these things exist they should be cured. If it is true that there are parsons, school managers, throughout the country openly breaking the law Sunday after Sunday, week after week, in the way the hon. Gentleman suggests, they should be brought to book. Why does he not help us to bring them to book, instead of making these vague general accusations against the whole class, which as a class, I am sure, do not deserve his censure? The truth is, the hon. Gentleman habitually uses language of the most exaggerated kind. He describes cases, which I hope do not exist at all, but which certainly, if they do, exist in very small numbers, of clergy-men teaching in their schools extravagant doctrines which I find myself unable to reconcile with the teaching of the Church of England. He makes the statement that 800,000 Protestant Nonconformist are obliged to go to such schools. Sir, that is a preposterous exaggeration. The 800,000 Nonconformist children are not obliged to go to those schools, If the hon. Gentleman had taken the trouble to go into the schools throughout our rural districts he would have found that in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the religious education given by the clergyman to the children of the parishioners, be they Churchmen or Nonconformists, is absolutely in harmony with the general wishes of the parents, and I do not believe that he will be able to find half a dozen —I doubt whether he will be able to find three—cases throughout the length and breadth of the land in which he can show that the Conscience Clause has really been violated by the clergyman. If he does, it is not only his right, it is his bounden duty, never to rest until these cases are thoroughly exposed, and until the legal, normal, and healthy system is introduced into them—that system which, I believe, does prevail throughout the rest of the country. I do not propose to follow the hon. Gentleman through his criticism of certain text-books which he brought to the attention of the House. The extracts he gave from the only one which I gathered to be authorised in the training colleges seem to me to be too brief, and in fact too innocuous, to deserve much comment. The only statement in that book which the hon. Member quoted, and which he thought was an attack on the Reformation, was, I must say, a very severe, if not wholly exaggerated, criticism of the stormy times which accompanied the Reformation movement.

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

The whole book is a condemnation of the Information. There is nothing at all in the book to indicate the true character of the great Reformation in this country.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

That is the hon. Member's general statement, but his only specific instance, which I have ventured to quote, does not bear out his general statement. If the hon. Member will call to mind the excesses of the Anabaptists at the one end of the scale, and the massacres of St. Bartholomew at the other end of the scale, I think he will find that his references do not justify the incriminating deductions which he has drawn from them. I do not profess to have road the look, but the quotations made by the hon. Gentleman from it do not, in my opinion, support the statement he has made. The hon. Gentleman has put before the House a broad general proposition, and to that I hope the House will express its strong dissent. Because here and there, in his opinion, there are, rightly or wrongly, doctrines taught in Church of England schools that he wishes to make it impossible for the most Protestant members of the Church of England to teach in Voluntary schools, he wishes to destroy the whole system of the Wesleyan Voluntary schools and the whole system of the Roman Catholic Voluntary schools.

* MR. SAMUEL SMITH

No, no.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Well, but he does. His proposition is that the Voluntary schools lead to abuses, which he has described; that the settlement of 1870 has proved to be a failure, and therefore he thinks that the whole system should be uprooted. That is his proposition, and I hope that the House will express an emphatic negative to it. If the hon. Member simply asks me to agree with him that some of the teaching on which he comments is very unfortunate and inconsistent, in my personal views, with the position of the Church of England, of course I agree with him; but that is not the proposition he brings before the House. He says that because here and there there are abuses in the system, the system itself must be destoyed, the only alternative being the introduction of secular education. I do not think that this is a convenient opportunity for the House to come to a vote on that question. The actual proposition before us is whether we shall go for our holidays to-night or to-morrow. I do not think that that raises the issue in a very clear, practical, or convenient form; but whenever the hon. Member does raise the clear, practical issue I certainly shall be found voting with those who think that the existing Voluntary school system, with all its defects, deserves to be maintained, especially considering that the only substitute suggested by the hon. Member himself is secular education, which is put in rivalry with the Voluntary schools. I am sorry that the House has not an opportunity of voting on that, and that the hon. Member has not had an opportunity of bringing on his motion. He has, however, had an opportunity of making a speech, and that, I hope, will partially reconcile him to his loss. [AN HON MEMBER: Oh!] I do not know what the hon. Gentleman objects to in that. I think, at any rate, he will not find this a convenient opportunity to ask the House to divide upon an issue which can give no true indication of the opinion held in this House on the very important subject which he has brought before it.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE (Carnarvon Boroughs)

I very much regret the tone adopted by the right hon. Gentleman in his reply to the hon. Member for Flint. This is a matter of much greater importance than he seems to imagine. It is a question which affects very deeply the religious convictions of a community numbering two millions of people; and I regret much that he did not address himself to its consideration in a much more grave spirit than he did. I quite agree that a motion for the adjournment of the House for the holidays is not a convenient method of raising a discussion on a matter of this kind; but surely that is the greatest argument that could be adduced in support of the motion of my hon. friend. I think it is important enough to have induced the House to curtail its holidays by twenty-four hours. The right hon. Gentleman complains of what he called the exaggeration of my hon. friend. But I do not think I ever listened to a speech which so completely distorted every statement and argument put forward by my hon. friend. I will give one illustration. He said that my hon. friend wishes to destroy the Roman Catholic, the Church of England, and the Wesleyan Voluntary schools. That was not my hon. friend's argument at all. Our whole complaint is that in a large number of districts in England and Wales there are schools where the doctrines of the minority of the population are taught to the children of the majority, and where the religious opinions of the managers of the schools are not those of the majority of the population. The right hon. Gentleman asks, "Are there no Protestant children who go to Roman Catholic schools in Ireland?" That may be the case; but I point out the distinct difference. There the Protestant children constitute a very small minority. But in the east and west of England and in Wales there are hundreds of parishes with hundreds of schools which are managed by Church of England ministers, while the bulk of the population are Nonconformists. That is a very different case, and the right hon. Gentleman knows it, or ought to know it. I say that is a grievance which he ought to recognise— a grievance which was recognised by the Prime Minister himself. The right hon. Gentleman complained that my hon. friend made vague declarations as to the Conscience Clause being an insufficient protection in these cases. It is not a question of whether the Conscience Clause is violated; but of whether it is a sufficient protection or not. My hon. friend gave a specific case in support of his contention, but the right hon. Gentleman carefully ignored it altogether. And what about the case of the Welsh girl who was told that unless she signed a declaration abjuring the Wesleyan faith she could not become a teacher in a particular school?

SIR J. GORST

Where was it?

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE

In the west of England somewhere. I confess that at the moment I cannot give the name of the village, but I undertake to supply it to the right hon. Gentleman. There are hundreds of cases like that. It is perfectly well known that no Nonconformist child can become a teacher in any of these National schools, except on the express condition of giving up his or her faith. The right hon. Gentleman has never denied that.

SIR J. GORST

Oh yes, I have. Two years ago I challenged the hon. Member to produce me any case of that kind, and he has failed.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE

The challenge was entirely on our side, and the right hon. Gentleman failed to accept it. Let me say that this is not the only case of interruption by the right hon. Gentleman which is not entirely in conformity with fact—I do not say intentionally. The challenge was this. We made a general statement upon the evidence of statistics, collected by the Wesleyan communion in the east of England—statistics which were quoted to the right hon. Gentleman across the floor of the House by the right hon. Member for East Wolverhampton and the hon. Member for the Louth Division of Lincolnshire. It is perfectly true that the right hon. Gentleman did deny their accuracy; but we challenged him to get a Return from all these State schools of all the pupil teachers in them who wore not of the Anglican faith. The right hon. Gentleman very prudently did not take up that challenge. He referred us to the First Lord of the Treasury, and the First Lord of the Treasury referred us to the Duke of Devonshire; and the only result of that challenge is that they have declined to give us the information. It is very easy to obtain it. It is simply to call upon the school managers to give in the name of every teacher and pupil teacher who belongs to any faith except their own. I remember that the right hon. Gentleman read some letters from Wales on the subject; and it is true that one particular inspector belonging to the Church of England did deny our allegation, but the other did not. He said in regard to the case given by the hon. Member for Flint, that there was no intimidation. He denied it. Let mo remind the House of the facts which were given, and which were not denied.

SIR J. GORST

It was twice discussed in the House.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE

I would not have discussed it a third time had the right hon. Gentleman not now denied it. What happened then? A resident in the town of Flint claimed his rights for his children under the Conscience Clause in regard to free education; and what did the manager of the schools, the rector of Flint, do? He found out who were the employers of this parent, and he wrote a letter to Sir Henry Harben, one of the directors of the Prudential Assurance Company, complaining of the company's agent in Flint " interfering in polities" by claiming for his children the protection of the Conscience Clause.

SIR J. GORST

The facts were denied twice in the House.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE

The rector of Flint wrote a letter to Sir Henry Harben, who is the chief director of the Prudential Assurance Company, complaining of the action of his agent down there—that he was interfering in politics. What was the interference? Simply claiming for his children the protection of the Conscience Clause. That is not denied by the rector of Flint. I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he denies that the rector wrote the letter, and that Sir Henry Harben communicated with the man and told him not to interfere in politics. So much for the protection of the Conscience Clause. There is a specific case where it was in the power of the right hon. Gentleman to interfere. I remember what he said was that the rector denounced some poor labourers.

SIR J. GORST

Poor labourers! They were not poor labourers. They were ministers or officials of the rival church.

MR. LLOYD-GEORGE

This is the spirit in which the right hon. Gentleman administers the Conscience Clause. If they are preachers of a rival institution, what business has an official of the only State school in Flint to use his powers and the money the taxpayers give him in order to kick a rival institution and the ministers of a rival faith? Those hon. Members who know about the Conscience Clause never heard of labourers preaching in a Nonconformist church. These are the gentlemen who legislate for Nonconformists. [Laughter.] Is it a thing to laugh at that a labourer should be allowed to preach in a Primitive Methodist church? Those labourers were preachers in the Primitive Methodist church. Each of these men works for his daily bread and preaches on Sunday. What is there to laugh at and regard as discreditable in that? This is the way they are treated simply because they happen to preach on Sunday. They are therefore not to get the protection of the Conscience Clause. These are the exceptions to be made to the rule. This is the way that even-handed justice is to be meted out to the people of Flint and to the majority of Nonconformists. The school is entirely in the hands of the Anglican parson, who dooms it part of his duty to use his position, to use the tithe which the Nonconformist farmers of that district contribute towards his maintenance, for the purpose of mounting the pulpit, in order to denounce the people who claim the protection of the law of the land. It seems to me that Irishmen must obey the law or there is a Coercion Act. Parsons are the only people who can break the law which has been devised for the protection of the poor. Certainly, the rich people require no protection. They have schools of their own. The children of the labourer, simply because he preaches on Sunday, are to be insulted. These are the facts which were given at the time. What happens? If an insurance agent claims the protection of the Conscience Clause for his children he is to be dismissed and starved. The rival preachers are not to have the protection of the clause. They ought to stop it. They should not be rivals. The right hon. gentleman, I am sorry to say, has been administering the law not equitably and not fairly, but has simply allowed himself to be pressed by hon. gentlemen behind him. He simply wants to utilise the powers of the Education Department for the purpose of crushing out the board schools and giving now life to the other schools.

SIR J. GORST

I shall not intervene in the debate for more than a few minutes; but I cannot allow the accusation of the hon. Member to pass unnoticed —that the administration of the Education Department in these matters is not fair. I have always tried to get the hon. Gentleman to give specific charges. I have, however, always succeeded in getting general denunciations, but I have never been able to get a specific case. The Flint case has already done duty many times. If the rector of Flint from his pulpit attacked the persons referred to, they gave as good as they got. I confess that I am not prepared, without notice, to say that I am accurate in my recollection of everything connected with the case, but so far as I remember the case it was this. The rector of the parish had denounced from the pulpit certain persons who made use of the Conscience Clause. But those people had attacked him, and they brought down an agitator from Liverpool who made a speech in which the rector was attacked. There was no pretension that in Flint any Nonconformist parent was unable to obtain the protection of the Conscience Clause. The conduct of the rector was very reprehensible, but I am not his bishop, and have no eight to censure him. The only business of the Education Department was to see that parents were not intimidated for making use of the Conscience Clause, and I challenge any hon. Member opposite to bring forward a concrete case in which the Department has failed in its duty in that respect. There is another point I want to mention. I believe there are few schools from which Nonconformists are excluded from becoming pupil-teachers. Two years ago, when the subject was debated in the House, I challenged hon. Members opposite to give a concrete case. The challenge was taken up outside the House, and two cases were submitted, but on investigation they both broke down. I strongly suspect that one was the case brought forward the other day by a deputation which waited on the Lord President. A girl who was a Nonconformist and sought admission into a Church school as a pupil-teacher was about to sign a declaration, in order to become a pupil teacher in a Church school, that she would join the Established Church. My recollection of the case is that she got a batter situation in a school elsewhere, and the undertaking was never signed. It is the desire of the Government, the Education Department, and myself never to aggravate religious animosities. They do not exist in the schools. They are unknown in the practice of the Department. They are only known in the House of Commons and on platforms. It is the desire of all the officials of the Education Department, from the highest to the lowest, to avoid aggravating religious dissension and to administer the schools fairly, that all children may be taught the religion their parents desire, and that no one should be under any disability because of that religion.

LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE (Wiltshire, Cricklade)

My hon. friend the Member for Flint brought forward a motion which I think, in the first instance, seemed to touch one comparatively small specific part of the large question of education—namely, that in certain cases the rectors of schools, clergymen as a rule, are teaching doctrines which are anti-Reformation doctrines. I am inclined to think with the First Lord of the Treasury and the Vice-President of the Council that these cases are comparatively rare, but the mere fact that they are not capable of accurate statement and proof in the tribunal of this House docs not, it appears to me, show necessarily that they do not exist, because I think, if the First Lord of the Treasury could have approached this subject in a larger spirit than he appeared to do, he would have realised that this kind of thing is exceedingly difficult of proof, for this reason, that the only persons who can give evidence are placed in an exceedingly difficult position locally, and they have great temptation to remain silent. But, nevertheless, I am not inclined to think that these cases are exceedingly numerous, nor am I disposed to think that cases are numerous where it can be shown as the result of attacks, whether directed from the pulpit or in school by the headmaster under clerical influence, that some child, or the parent of some child, is forced to abandon the benefit of the Conscience Clause. But from our point of view the whole of this argument is a far larger matter. What I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Vice-President of the Council is—does he deny that there are in this country an enormous number of schools, especially in the rural districts, where the children of Nonconformist parents must either attend the school and accept the teaching of Church of England principles, or withdraw altogether from religious teaching, and be satisfied with nothing but that secular education which hon. Members opposite are always ready to denounce as bad? The facts are perfectly well known. They are to be found in the volumes placed on the Table of this House by the right hon. Gentleman. There are now in the rural districts an enormous number of parishes in which there are nothing but Church of England schools, and the children of Nonconformist parents must go to these schools, or break the law by not attending school at all. Does Her Majesty's Government deny these facts? These facts are notorious, and constitute a great educational injustice in this country. These occasional cases of hardship occur when some clerical manager comes forward, and, having been accustomed to rule the roost in his own parish, ends at last by threatening those who will not accept his domination and dictation. The right hon. Gentleman told the House that he investigated the case, I believe, of an aspiring pupil who desired to be a pupil teacher in a rural school, and who was prevented from becoming so by the practice of the Church of England party in that particular parish; but he said those cases are so exceptional that really they are not worth mentioning in this House. Why, as a matter of fact the clerical managers of the Church of England schools, with the rarest exceptions, would be breaking the very trusts which they manage if they were to admit a pupil teacher who does not belong to the Church of England. It is the case that in every school connected with the National Society for Promoting the Education of Children in the Principles of the Church of England, every manager, and every head teacher, whether a master or a mistress, and every pupil teacher, must be a member of the Church of England, and must make a declaration to that effect in order to be admitted to the humblest step on the ladder. Those who do not belong to the Church of England are thereby prevented from putting a foot on the ladder, and rising to the highest rung. The right hon. Gentleman tells us that we cannot bring forward a particular case which will stand discussion in the House. The facts cannot be denied, and it is out of the atmosphere so created that the insolence of tone adopted in some clerical circles has arisen. The right hon. Gentleman said that such cases as have been mentioned are rare, but, as a matter of fact, managers of Church schools are usually required by the conditions of their trust to insist that every teacher shall be a member of the Church of England, and a Nonconformist pupil teacher has to give up his legitimate ambition or make a declaration hostile altogether to every principle in which he has been nurtured. The injustice consists in the fact that the whole power of management is with the Church. Let the First Lord of the Treasury apply the same canons he applies, perhaps with an excess of liberality, to the grievances of Roman Catholics in regard to university education in Ireland. Since a court of law in a test case decided against the National Society on the question of the validity of transfer of a school to a school board, the trust deeds of the society have been so altered that the society can absolutely veto the transfer of any such building. The facts of the situation are notorious and proved by Departmental reports. It is idle to require that a special case should be proved by technical rules of evidence. The struggle will not be relinquished until Nonconformists in country districts have equal rights with Churchmen, and such as they largely possess in towns, and which, by every claim of justice and equity, they are entitled to have by the law of the land.

* MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER (Belfast, W.)

I cannot say that I think the First Lord of the Treasury treated the hon. Member for Flint quite fairly in the speech he made, and I do feel it would be somewhat a misfortune if this debate, so unfortunately thrust upon the House, were to close leaving an impression that there is on this side of the House no feeling corresponding to that expressed by the hon. Member for Flint. Though I do not associate myself with everything that has been said, there is a deep feeling, though this may not be the occasion for expressing it, that the view presented by the hon. Member deserves the careful attention of the House. The right hon. Gentleman diverted attention from the main gravamen of the charge brought by the hon. Member for Flint. I confess I agree with the hon. Member for the Cricklade Division that, as regards some of the points raised, this is not a question for minute proof. Some of the facts are too notorious to be capable of any denial at all. But when the hon. Member for Flint quotes from books authorised for use in the training colleges passages in which attempts are made to bring the great Protestant Reformation into ridicule and contempt, it becomes a question to consider whether in view of such teaching we can continue the position we have hitherto maintained towards these colleges as to payments out of State funds. With regard to the other book from which the hon. Member read disgusting passages of profane drivel which I understand form part of the religious instruction given to pupils destined to be teachers in our State-paid schools, I honestly believe that even the bigotry of Spain in the days of Alva could hardly outrival the spirit there shown. This is not the place to discuss whether or not those expressions were justifiable, but I do say, and really I think there are very few who will disagree with me, that if this is to be the doctrine which is to be taught in these great training college, the whole position will have to be reconsidered. I think the First Lord rather unfairly put upon the hon. Member the dilemma of saying that if he held these views he must desire to see all religious teaching swept away. If that is so, it. is a dilemma which will no doubt present itself to a great many hon. Members besides the hon. Member for Flint. It is within the knowledge of Members of this House that attempts have been made to ensure that teaching of this kind should not be continued with the aid of public money, and we have had many assurances that the evils would not be continued. It is therefore a very relevant fact to be informed that in some very important centres it has been continued and is prevalent at the present moment. I am by tradition and conviction a strong believer in the maintenance of religious education in our schools. But you may pay too high a price for gold, and that is the conviction which I think will eventually be brought home to a great number of the people of this country. I commend to hon. Members who accept without demur the rather warm condemnation of the hon. Member opposite, which the First Lord has thought it his duty to pronounce, a study of the passages which have excited—and, I think, not unreasonably excited—the indignation of the hon. Gentleman. Whether we can on this occasion, or, indeed, on any other occasion in this House, profitably occupy ourselves with legislation for the purpose of diminishing these evils is another matter, but I do desire for my part—and, of course, I have no right to speak for anyone but myself— to say that I believe the hon. Member opposite has put his finger on a very grave and serious state of things, and one which really does merit the attention of this House.

MR. BOSCAWEN (Kent, Tunbridge)

The hon. Gentleman opposite told us this was a very large question, because there were hundreds of places where Nonconformist children had to attend schools presided over by Anglican clergymen, thereby suggesting that in those schools religious teaching was given which was not suited to the requirements of the children, and to which, in fact, the parents objected. If that grievance is to be brought forward I must remind the hon. Gentleman that there are still more schools—namely, Board schools, where the children of Church of England parents are given religious education of which they disapprove. ["No."] At all events, that is the case in a great many schools, and in many there is no religious teaching at all. ["Where?"] There are forty schools in Wales where there is no religious education whatever given. Therefore, if one grievance is to be brought forward, the other grievance also must be brought forward, and if there is to be a great change made in our Voluntary school system, which I am quite prepared to admit is not perfect in every respect, there must be a great change in the Board school system also. So this question is really a much larger one than even the hon. Gentleman suggested. The question we have before us is the whole question of elementary education. Are we to have our present system, which is a double system—the Voluntary system, where religious teaching is given in accordance with the wishes of the managers, protected by a Conscience Clause; and the Board school system, which is entirely undenominational—or are we to have one great system—of Board schools, if you like, but Board schools which are denominational and where denominational teaching may be given? That is a great question, and one which I submit cannot be decided by a snatch vote and a short debate on an occasion like the present. It is the great question of religious teaching in our schools for the future. The hon. Gentleman asks us, simply because certain things are alleged to occur in very badly authenticated instances in Voluntary schools, to sweep away that system, and to substitute for it nothing but the present Board school system. Hon. Members on this side of the House representing Church of England and Roman Catholic feeling will never consent to get rid of Voluntary schools unless the Board school system is amended. Therefore I say that the question is a much bigger one than has been suggested; it affects the whole of our educational system. The present occasion is not one upon which we can adequately or properly discuss that question; it is impossible at the present time to remodel the whole of our educational system. Therefore we must continue to carry on the double system until we get something better, and until the British public is prepared to allow denominational education in all schools.

SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs)

I think the hon. Member who has just spoken is, as he has unquestionably shown us by his observations, a stout supporter of denominational schools and of religious education. I cannot imagine anyone who holds those views thinking that that cause is assisted by ignoring or attempting to defend such proceedings as have been exposed by my hon. friend. The point before the House to-night, if I may say so in correction of the hon. Gentleman opposite, is not a question of Board schools and Voluntary schools, or of religious education and non-religious education. The question is whether the influence of certain schools, which are Church of England schools, supported out of public funds, to which many children of Nonconformists as well as of Churchmen have to go, and whether the influence of training colleges, in connection with the Church of England, for which we vote a large sum of money every year, is to be employed to undermine that which undoubtedly is the conception of the vast majority of the people of this country of the creed which they are intended to support. That is the point at issue. Surely if there is any way more certain than any other of giving additional strength to denominational schools and to religious education, it would be to purge the whole system of any suspicion of the sort of underhand proceedings which my hon. friend has exposed. I had not the advantage of hearing the —I understand lively and energetic— speech of the Leader of the House, but I believe he denounced in no measured terms the conduct of those who use their position in connection with the schools for the purpose of inculcating doctrines contrary to the received doctrines of the Church of England. That is the point of my hon. friend, and I submit to the House that it is not at all cleared away or disposed of by the plea being made that detailed particulars in each case must be given. We have heard quite enough and we know quite enough from various sources of information to be sure that this sort of thing is going on; and surely if the House of Commons can be called upon to pronounce its opinion upon any subject it would be in condemnation of such a breach of faith as well as breach of duty as has been exposed to us tonight. Then we come to the question of the course which Members of the House are to pursue. My hon. friend has moved an Amendment which has reference solely to the question of when the House of Commons is to adjourn. That does not appear to me to be an opportunity for expressing any very explicit opinion on the subject. My hon. friend has been driven from pillar to post in this matter, and he takes what he thinks is the best opportunity he has of dividing the House and getting an expression of opinion. But what would be the value of an opinion so expressed? I venture to doubt whether the division on the Amendment the hon. Member has moved—in fact, I do not doubt, I am quite certain the division would convey no information whatever to the ordinary outsider in this matter as to the view of the House. There would be a great many Members who would not be disposed to vote for it, not because they disagreed with my hon. friend, but because they thought it was so irregular and so indirect a manner of expressing their opinion that it would be impossible to support it. I confess I am in that frame of mind myself. While I cordially sympathise with my hon. friend, while I think he has done great service in bringing this matter forward, and while I think he has been accidentally hardly used by the circumstances and the time in not having a better opportunity, and an opportunity which would have enabled him to take the direct judgment of the House, still I do not think the expedient he has adopted is altogether a satisfactory one. I would strongly urge him to be content with the effect, which will be not inconsiderable, of the debate he has initiated, and not to take a division in a manner which would not really represent the opinion of the House.

MR. WILLIAM JONES (Carnarvonshire, Arfon)

The hon. Member for the Tunbridge Wells Division said there were forty schools in Wales under the School Board system in which no religious teaching was given. Possibly the House will be interested to know in what kind of a district those schools are situated. They are situated in three counties where there are no county jails, and where the system of Sunday schools has been so good that all the children attend them regularly. These schools are called godless schools because the parents who send their children to them have such a splendid system of Sunday schools to which the children go. But to come to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Education. I look upon this question not from any sectarian point of view; in fact, I never like to look at education from a sectarian point of view at all. Education is a much larger question than any sectarian creed or denomination. But the truth must be known, and since the right hon. Gentleman has challenged us to point to cases where pupil teachers cannot be drawn from Nonconformists, I will give him some specific instances from my own constituency. There is a quarry district in my constituency where seven-eighths of the parents and seven-eighths of the children are Nonconformists. The school in this district is a Church school, and never within my experience has a pupil teacher in that school been drawn from the Nonconformist majority. This is not a religious grievance; it is an educational grievance, because, given a restricted area of selection, where you have only a few Church children from whom to draw your pupil teachers, you get the worst teachers. It is a natural thing, from an educational point of view, that if you want the best pupil teachers you must draw them from the widest possible area. Here the widest possible area is a Nonconformist area, and yet these pupil teachers are drawn exclusively from Church of England children. What is the result? The result is that many of these pupil teachers fail in their examinations and degenerate into what are called "Article 68." Not merely in Wales is this the case, but in England also. In the diocesan district of Oxford, I was told by an Oxford educationalist the other day that nearly 40 per cent. of the teachers belong to the class "Article 68." If the right hon. Gentleman, in order to get at the facts, will read the report which those who inquired into our pupil-teacher system in Wales made a few years ago, he will find instance! after instance quoted by Professor Phillips and others, when they were examined before the Committee, of cases where it was impossible for Nonconformist children to become pupil teachers or teachers in Church schools. I do not blame the right hon. Gentleman so much, or the First Lord of the Treasury; I blame mainly for perpetuating this system within the last few years the Archbishop of Canterbury. Although the Archbishop of Canterbury is an eminent and distinguished scholar, and has been headmaster of Rugby School and of a training college, he inculcates education from the point of view of a rural parson. Last year, when we were trying to amend the pupil-teacher system, the Archbishop controlled the whole Cabinet, and runaway with them in his archiepiscopal apron. If he came as a poor quarryman to my constituency, he would find that the chapels collect on Sunday nights subscriptions to send pupil teachers to county schools because of this attitude in connection with clericalism, catechism, and Church creed. It is to the detriment of education that such a thing can survive, and it is mainly from the educational standpoint that I look at the matter. I, like many hon. Members opposite, believe that no educational system is complete without religion, and I want them to consent to my proposition that these schools in which pupil teachers are drawn from a narrow area—a system of ill-staffed Article 68 schools — cannot possibly produce a system of education which can be religious. I feel strongly upon this question from an educational standpoint. I want not mere secular education, but a thoroughly sound national education, not to make Churchmen or Nonconformists, but to make more manly men and more womanly women and trained citizens according to the spirit and highmindedness of the English and the Welsh people. In addition to these schools we have the training colleges. I can give instances in my own constituency where young men who have applied after getting a Queen's Scholarship to the national training colleges have failed to get admission unless they sold their conscience. There was one instance of a young Congregationalist who passed, I believe, first-class on the list of Queen's Scholarships, but not high enough to enter the college at which he sat. He applied for admission to one of the Church training colleges—a Church training college supported mainly by the money of the State—but because he was a Congregationalist he was asked by the head of the college whether he would sell his own creed and conscience and become a member of the Church of England. I am sorry to say he did both. The man may be weak, but the system that weakens a man's conscience in that way cannot be a right system, and it is because that system is being perpetuated by such men as the Archbishop of Canterbury and other educationalists of the Church of England that I enter my small protest against this state of things being allowed to exist.

MR. BROADHURST (Leicester)

I rise for the purpose of repeating to the right hon. Gentleman the Vice-President the question addressed to him by the hon. Member for Carnarvon Boroughs, namely, will he supply the House with a Return of the number of Nonconformist teachers in Church schools? The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head. That is the only answer he can give to the challenge which has been made to him. He denies the existence of oppression and coercion, and yet when we ask him to take steps which he is perfectly capable of taking to controvert the statements here made, he shakes his head and refuses to take any action.

SIR J. GORST

As I explained at the time, the Education Department have no authority whatever to ask any teacher in a national school his religion.

MR. BROADHURST

No, but you can ask the managers of the schools. The fact is, the statements which have been made here to-night are perfectly true, and they are known to be true. It is easy for the right hon. Gentleman to demand proofs. He knows perfectly well what that means. In many cases the only effective proof would be the evidence of the managers themselves who cause the teachers to be discharged or to be refused employment because of their religious convictions. The challenge, therefore, is a perfectly safe one. Only a few months ago when talking with the master of a Voluntary school in a rural district as to his work in the school he complained to me of the difficulty of getting qualified teachers, and he told me that the qualified teacher who had recently been at the school had been discharged on account of his religious convictions. The moment I attempted to obtain names, dates, and all other incidents connected with the matter the master said— If you bring this matter under the notice of the proper authorities my position will be at stake. I should risk my appointment, and the probabilities are that I should be discharged. How are you to get proofs under conditions such as that? I had another case brought to my notice not long ago of most outrageous proceedings towards Nonconformist children on the part of the managers of a Voluntary school, 19s. out of every £1 spent on the maintenance of which probably comes from the general taxpayer. The father of the children was a poor working man who held an appointment in the parish, and if his complaint had been lodged and the proof given it is perfectly certain that the man would have lost his position, and had to seek another home, with nine children to be responsible for. It is almost impossible to give the proofs in such cases as these. The fact is, the right hon. Gentleman and the Leader of the House do not appear to desire proof. They have mot the whole case in a spirit of utter want of sympathy. They seem to have mot the case as though they were the specially appointed defenders of the conduct which has been condemned to-night. In connection with the case of Flint, I remember very well the main facts. I was in the town shortly after the main incidents occurred, and to-night the right hon. Gentleman rides off with the lame excuse that he is not the bishop controlling the actions of the Rector of Flint. No, but he belongs to the Department that supplies the Rector of Flint with probably 18s. out of every £1 spent in the school, and it is with regard to the educational and not the ecclesiastical law we are appealing to the right hon. Gentleman. The Bishop controls the ecclesiastical law, but the right hon. Gentleman has the right, in the name of the House of Commons, to demand obedience to the educational law, seeing that the money is supplied by the House of Commons. The way in which the Government have conducted this debate to-night, their evasive replies to the charges made by my hon. friend, the manner in which they have evaded all the real issues under discussion, seem to point to the fact, lamentable as it is, that they are party educationists, that the Nonconformist conscience is of no account with them, that in their view Nonconformists have no rights, and that the Government exists to bolster up the Church system, irrespective of the claims of other churches who contribute equally with the Church of England to the educational system of the country. We shall draw our own conclusions as to the reason of the right hon. Gentleman's refusal to grant the Return which has been asked for. We have a grave suspicion that such a Return would prove the complaints up to the hilt, and that the right hon. Gentleman would not then have a fact to stand upon in defending the present system. If my hon. friend takes this Amendment to a division—I am not urging him to do so—I shall support him. It is not a good or an effective opportunity of taking a vote, but the effective opportunities are so rare in this House that we the poor unfortunate minority must seize any and every opportunity that offers, and, for all we know, from the discussions and gossip of the lobbies, this may be our last opportunity this Parliament.

MR. HERBERT LEWIS (Flint Boroughs)

I heard with amazement the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that the cases of pupil teachers' grievances are rare. He said he had thrown out a challenge. My hon. friend the Member for Carnarvon replied to the challenge, but the right hon. Gentleman completely ignored the Report made by the Departmental Committee on the subject. What did the Committee themselves state after having taken evidence upon this question?— The grievance of Nonconformists in regard both to lack of facilities for obtaining posts as pupil teachers and subsequent entrance into training colleges are very serious, and we believe the State loses a large number of competent pupil teachers in this way. Can anything be stronger than that? Here is the official Report of a Departmental Committee, specially appointed to investigate cases of this kind, and yet the right hon. Gentleman dismisses the question in a light and airy way as though the grievance was non-existent. The right hon. Gentleman challenges us, but may I remind him of a challenge I gave him on the 28th April last? I said— The Vice-president of the Council has asked for particulars of cases in which Nonconformists have been prevented from becoming pupil teachers on religious grounds. What reply has he to make to the report of the Education Committee of the Wesleyan Conference, which states that, out of 946 towns and villages in regard to which the Committee made inquiry, it was found that there were only 88 cases in which candidates were admitted to become pupil teachers without any act of conformity to the Church of England, and 858 cases in which either confirmation or attendance at the services of the Church of England was required as a condition of becoming a pupil teacher. I ask the right hon. Gentleman, has he any reply to make to that? He has stated that the grievance is a non-existent one. I point him to these facts. He has never ventured to deny them or to make any comment upon them. I think I may safely leave the matter at this point in the hands of the House, who I think will he pretty well convinced that the grievance is one of real and substantial character, and one which Parliament ought to remove at the earliest possible opportunity.

MR. SAMUEL SMITH

I am thoroughly satisfied with the tone of the debate which has been elicited from the House this afternoon, and I do not intend to proceed with my Amendment. Before sitting down I wish to say, with the permission of the House, that I had not the slightest intention of imputing any want of faith to the right hon. Gentleman in any assurance he gave; I have far too much respect and admiration for him to think that for one moment.

Amendment by leave withdrawn.

Main Question again proposed.