HC Deb 06 May 1902 vol 107 cc887-936

[SECOND READING.]

Adjourned debate on Amendment to Second Reading continued.

(9.0.) SIR ALBERT ROLLIT (Islington, S.)

This Bill may be open to many of the criticisms which have been levelled against it by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and I do not doubt that considerable amendment will have to be made in its provisions. At the same time, it is an attempt to deal with our greatest national need, and, as I regard it, at least one step in the right direction. The only right hon. Gentleman who appears to have any doubt about this point is the Vice-President of the Council, who seems to think that no Act of Parliament and no legislation can achieve anything. We know that when the battle of Jena occurred a century ago one Minister said to his Sovereign, "We must make up intellectually what we have lost materially," and that is the sentence upon which has been built up the Government system of education which Germany now possesses, while our State system of education has not lasted a third so long. Hinc lachrymce! The chief recommendation of this scheme to rue is its municipal basis. It gives us one educational authority, the councils of the counties and boroughs, which are directly representative. It gives us the one and the same rating and spending authority, which is most desirable, which at least will be far better than the system which enables precepts to be levied and payments must be made without any one knowing whether the payment is desirable or not. And it strikes at the root of the system of the cumulative vote, which is not representative of the feeling of the people, but only representative of the feeling of faddists and of factions. The Bill will have one other advantage. It will re-act on local government itself. I believe knowledge and favour of local government to be of paramount importance. It will be one more incentive to the performance of public duty. I regard the concentration of public duty, and with it honour and responsibility, as likely to be attractive to the best men of all classes; and I could hope that, instead of having to co-opt educational experts, the time is coming when those experts will come into our Councils by the ordinary channel and give us the education which some of our Councils undoubtedly need. This will also be good for these so-called educational experts, who are chiefly responsible for the present lamentable state of our education, for elections and the like will improve their own education. I have reason to know that our Councils are unanimous in their desire to assume the control of secondary education; and, while I am one who has no desire to supersede the School Boards, and while, as an old chairman of one, I know and appreciate their work, in some cases I feel that the municipalities have the stronger claim to the conduct of secondary education, great and long as have been the services of the Board, and valuable even when illegal.

It has been asked where the moneys for this are coming from; they cannot come more surely or more liberally from anywhere than from the municipal authorities who have the power to rate. The Councils are in possession of and working for secondary education no less than technical instruction, and the wonder is that they have done the work of technical education so well as they have. The funds were thrown at them suddenly and without any direction, and yet we have the fact that of the £980,000 per annum contributed by the whiskey moneys, the Councils have applied £900,000 to technical education. Again, of sixty-four county boroughs no less than sixty-one have applied the whole of this money to education, and many boroughs, most county boroughs, if not all, have rated themselves for the purposes of education. It is only fair to add that most of the non-county boroughs have done the same, while no English county, save, perhaps, one partially, has done the same. By these means we have covered the whole of the country with technical education schools.

I have one criticism to make upon the Bill from a municipal point of view, and that is that, while I have every faith in the principle of the Bill and the general action of the Councils, though there will be some new authorities, e.g., urban district Councils, I cannot agree with the right hon. Member for Dartford. There is nothing mandatory in it—at any rate so far as secondary instruction is concerned. The previous Bills have been mandatory, but the words in this Bill are: "The Council I may aid secondary education," "may use the whiskey moneys," "may spend further sums." I think it would have been well to have put into the Bill at least some general directions by which these whiskey moneys would be earmarked, and it ought to be obligatory on the Councils to apply them to education. The Bill confers many powers, but it carries with it too many limitations and reservations. There is too great a multiplicity of appeals and the like, and I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Vice-President to remember his speech at Bradford, the one principle of which was trust in the municipalities and the firm belief that they knew best what their own interests were, and were prepared to follow them in an enlightened spirit.

The second, and probably the more debatable, element of the Bill is one on which I shall speak simply as an educationist, and view it from that standpoint only. That is what may be called the principle of the utilisation of all our schools for educational purposes. The point is not to destroy any work that is in being—not to waste it—for we need all our educational resources. And the question is, when we have done all, whether we can retain our place in the great race. Now, there is undoubtedly some difference of opinion among municipalities as to whether the duties of directing primary education should be at present undertaken by them. The question is also complicated by Party feeling and some religious rancour; and it is sad to think that some religious people will work for religion, will fight for religion, will die for religion, and, in short, do anything but live for it. One of the best features of our debate today, as when I also took part in the First Reading, is that there has been a better tone, more disposition to live for religion, and to show a more enlightened spirit in carrying out religion; because educational debates ought to be for education and also for religion. I believe the majority of the municipal Borough Councils, at any rate, desire to undertake elementary education as well as secondary education; but some ask "Have we time for it, and are we educationally quite ripe for taking that responsibility?" I am, therefore, going to say a word in favour of the adoptive or optional clause of the Bill, winch has been so much denounced, but which marks and has worked well in other educational statutes, e.g., the Library and Museums &c, Acts. I venture to say that coercion and force, even for a good object like education, are contradictory terms; and I am going to ask: Is it wise to say to a municipality which may doubt its own powers or its time that it must undertake elementary instruction? If incapability or incompetence be pleaded, it seems to me it would be most unwise to apply compulsion in the interest of education itself. At any rate, an education force is no remedy. Therefore, I think that those Councils who desire to retain the School Board system for temporary or for transition purposes, and there are some great Corporations much attached to their Boards, and with reason and justice, should be allowed to do so without interference, even if it should cause some anomalies, and that the optional clause should be retained, in which case the schedule must be altered by making one year the limit for renewing the Motion to adopt the act in boroughs, which are annually and not triennially like County Councils, and after any election such a Motion ought to be possible. With regard to the rebuilding and replacing of voluntary schools, if the municipalities are to undertake elementary instruction, it seems to me that the voluntary schools are an absolutely indispensable part of the machinery. We cannot do without them if we would; and when an hon. Member (Mr. Mather) put the cost of replacing them at £50,000,000, of money, he put the problem in a concrete form and at once showed the difficulty. There are in these schools 3,000,000 children, or more than half our scholars; the schools number 14,000, which means in itself a capital of many millions; no rent is to be charged, and they are to be kept in repair. Are we to attempt to replace all these schools? Such a question answers itself. And, lastly, we have the fact, so characteristic of the country, that many insist on distinctive religious teaching. It may be that such early teaching may not be very fertile; it may now and again produce such a young-theological scholar as the one who defined faith as a belief in things which can't happen, hope as a belief in things that don't happen, and charity as a belief in things which never will happen; but we have such an assurance of religious convictions that there are a number of people who have subscribed £1,000,000 a year to carry on the voluntary schools as they exist. And to fix the responsibility of replacing them on the ratepayers will be to lay so great a burden upon them as to create a fatal reaction against all education owing to its cost. It has been said that farmers and others will grudge the money for education, and such a policy would give them a pretext if not an excuse.

I, therefore, think the voluntary schools are a necessary element of the Bill, and of any Bill dealing at this moment with education. But we have not to search far for principles or precedents for aiding institutions where distinctive religious doctrinal instruction is given. That has been the policy of Parliament. There is no distinction; there cannot be any distinction, between the Parliamentary grants which are given to our voluntary schools and rates. Much has been said of the work of our university colleges, and in one of them—King's College—there is most distinctive religious teaching and Church tests, to which objection has been taken by myself and others of its own Council, but we have been outweighed, and yet an annual grant is made by Parliament to King's College. What we have to aim at is, while respecting opposite opinions, to see, as far as possible, that efficient secular instruction in a reasonable and proper form is secured on terms and conditions which are fair and not illusory, and which may commend themselves to the ratepayers and the taxpayers of the country, and as to this part of the Bill, I entirely reserve my opinion until the Committee stage.

My hon. friend the Member for Rossendale doubted whether the Town Councils would be willing to provide the necessary funds. In answer to that suggestion, I think it will be admitted that the Borough Councils have been liberal and enterprising in the work of technical and secondary education. They are proud of the work they have accomplished, and you will find in them not parsimony but patriotism in this matter. There are some here who hope and believe that by superseding School Boards, and putting municipalities in their places, they will stem the work of education, but they will find they are greatly mistaken. I think a broader spirit will arise. I am of the opinion of the American statesman who said, "Our largest rate is the education rate, and the municipalities themselves already pay it most cheerfully, because it brings the greatest return to the country."

Education is a source of saving to the State, and as such economical. Now, why in this Bill is there a limit of 2d.? Why not act on the principle expressed by the Vice-President at Bradford and here, and trust to the local knowledge, experience, and judgment of the municipalities? Let them do what they think is best for their own community. They have the check of the ratepayers upon them, and the municipalities have unanimously agreed that there ought not to be this limitation. The municipality of Huddersfield is at this moment desirous of acquiring its technical schools, but what is the use of such oil and 2d.? A rate of 8d. will be required to do that. I thank the Government for one concession to us—they have inserted a power, by way of Provisional Order, to remove the limitation, but it seems to me that the recognition of local knowledge ought to have been sufficient to have obtained its removal, and that the municipalities should not be put to the expense of coming to Parliament to obtain it. Then I would ask the President of the Local Government Board why the Provisional Order should be through his Department, and why his Department should say what the limitation should be. This is an educational matter, and I do not see the necessity for this change from the Board of Education.

There are some other concessions in the Bill, which I desire to acknowledge, as compared with the previous Bills. It leaves the non-county boroughs the right and privilege of rating themselves concurrently with the county to the extent of the present 1d. in the £1. Many of them also desire to know why they are to be limited to 1d. Many have done, in many respects, all that the county boroughs have done, and a great deal more than the County Councils have done, for the County Councils have never rated themselves. They have applied the whiskey moneys to education and have made a contribution from their rates, and I ask for them this concession: that their work should not be destroyed, or themselves be subordinated or submerged, as they fear, in rural educational apathy. At the proper time I shall give evidence of the work they have done as a justification for the appeal I make to the Government to say that where a non-county borough has rated itself for the purposes of education, where it has shown the will and the means to do its own education, and when it is in the interest of education in its district it should on its own initiative be, not only a committee, but should have a right to be its own educational authority, while its right to be the authority for elementary instruction, as in the Bill, is beyond question,. Distances and want of local knowledge, and the analogy of present school board areas prevent any different arrangement.

I shall deal practically with only one other matter, but I venture to say it is a municipal point of very considerable importance. I speak of Clause 12 of the Bill. It is declared by that clause that the Council is to act through a Committee; to devolve these additional duties to a Committee. That is a perfectly proper arrangement, which could not be objected to; but when the constitution of this Committee is compared with the Committees under the previous Bills, there is a most important change, which is certainly not in the direction of municipal control. As we have heard so much of municipal control, I invite attention to this point: that in the constitution of this Committee there need not be a single member of the Council; they may be all external members, and there must be such external members compulsorily. I merely point out this to urge that the provision of a former Bill of 1900, which was purely permissive, qua external experts, followed the right line, because it followed the Technical Instruction Act, which also was purely permissive, and has worked well. Then comes another departure from the former Bills, which is also most important, and that is that instead of the municipal element of the Committee co-opting the additional members from within, those external members may be nominated by external bodies from without, so that you have a composite instead of a Municipal Committee.

Now, it is said that the Councils will have the control. I think that control ought to be real. The municipal principle is the very basis of the Bill, and, to my mind, the chief recommendation of the measure. I should like to ask what is to be the status of this Committee quâ the Council; what are to be the relations between the Council and the Committee? This is not an unthought-out problem, because in their Bill of 1900 the Government stated that the Scheme should define the relationship between them. That is a most important point. Now, there is nothing whatever in the Bill, and no definition of the relations of this Committee with the Council. The Vice-President only used of it the term "statutory." But I notice—and this leads me to a certain conclusion—the word "act"—"The Council shall act through a Committee." That is exactly the same as the word in the Municipal Corporations Act in constituting the Watch Committee, and it may be used in the same way; and I should like the House to remember that the better legal view of the relation of the Watch Committee to the Council is that it need neither submit its resolutions for confirmation, nor report to the Council. Now, if this Committee be the parallel of the Watch Committee, it seems to me that, if the Council is to act through its Committee, and that Committee has power to act for the Council, the Committee can commit the Council, not only educationally, but even financially. Therefore, there is legally no financial control. I would, therefore, ask the Government to tell us distinctly what these relations are. I would ask whether these words are to be used as they are in the Municipal Corporations Act, or whether the Committee is to report to the Council for approval and submit its Minutes to be confirmed or otherwise. If not, it seems to me that we may have an indirectly elected School Board instead of the present directly elected one, with power to levy precepts which could not be dealt with even from a financial standpoint. For these reasons, I hope we shall learn something more of these important details of the Bill. I have also to suggest the omission of the compulsory election of experts from nominated bodies, as the Committee may become too academic, and too little practical and modern in its educational views. While I believe the advice of experts is valuable, I think the sound common sense of the practical business men of our Corporations is a greater security that the education shall be modern, and not of too academic a character, especially in its application to our industrial undertakings. And, from the financial point of view, it is impossible for the Councils to do justice to the educational proposals of this Bill unless they are so recast in Committee as to create a close and constant connection between the Committees on the one hand and the Councils as the controlling authority on the other. Therefore, I hope that point will not be lost sight of, and that the majority of the Committee will not only be appointed by, but also from, the members of the Councils.

I have only one other point, and that is with regard to the appointment of managers. By the Bill, the representation of the Councils is not to exceed one-third, but I can only say I think the more representation of parents and the public authority there is, the better for the voluntary schools themselves. I have said for years, both here and in my constituency, and as a regular supporter of the voluntary schools, that public and parental representation on the management is in their own best interests, and to save them from decay and decadence and death, which this Bill may even bring about, which would be injurious to both the Churches and the State. And now is one more opportunity of making their growth not exotic, as in the past, but of grafting it on the public life of the country, and so making the schools permanent educational institutions, or, at any rate, of preserving them for a long time from decay by making them efficicient educational instruments. I have only to say in conclusion, that I think the Government has, on the whole, devised a Bill which is a step towards that education which the country so urgently requires in order to compete with nations which are in this matter better equipped than ourselves; and, while reserving much for amendment in Committee, I cannot take the responsibility of rejecting what may be made a practical and useful measure for public education.

(9.33) DR. MACNAMARA (Camberwell, N.)

I shall venture to assume that the Government will strike out the permissive clause, and I shall venture to assume that they will make it compulsory on local authorities to take over elementary education; because if that is not intended by the Government, then the scheme is absolutely grotesque, and scarcely worth discussing. Starting, then, with this assumption, I should like to examine the two main principles that the authors of the Bill say they desire to establish. The first is the creation in every area of one authority capable of controlling alb grades of education within its area. That, of course, is a most desirable end to attain. I doubt whether, in the course of this debate, sufficient attention has been paid to the state of affairs in regard to the local control over this country. For the last fifty or seventy years we have had scattered all over the country a large number of bodies of voluntary school managers. In the last thirty years you have had following them a public authority for elementary education in the School Boards. At the present moment two-thirds of the urban districts, and one-half of the rural areas, are covered by School Boards. There are 2,544 School Boards in all. Fourteen years ago the Chancellor of the Exchequer put some money into his Budget which could not be applied to the extinction of public-house licences, as was originally intended; so it was determined to send the money down to the various localities in relief of local taxation, and a hint was given that if that money was to be continued to be sent, it should be spent on technical instruction. From that moment, Technical Instruction Committees have been at work spending that money on technical instruction, and raising a penny-rate in contribution to it.

What is the result of all this hotchpotch of local government and education? First, we waste a considerable amount of money devoted to education in the duplication of educational machinery. Let me give an example. We of the London School Board have six industrial schools under our charge, accommodating 1,020 children; a Standing Committee of seventeen members: sub-Committees; and a large establishment on the Embankment. At the same time, the County Council have two industrial schools, accommodating 420 children. They have a Committee of fifteen members, and also an establishment at Spring Gardens. Now, my point is that either of these Committees could supervise the whole of these schools and all the children in them. Not only is there a great waste of money by the duplication of machinery, but there is a great deal of friction and irritation between the local authorities in regard to disputed territory. But, worse than all this, there is the fact that so long as each grade school is under a separate authority you cannot have the schools linked together; you cannot have that community of aim and purpose, that dovetailing of the curricula of various schools, which will enable a child of capacity but of humble parentage to move from one school to another without hindrance. From the point of view of the working classes that is the most serious problem of this time. You can never get the educational ladder a reality until all grades of schools and their curricula are under one and the same authority in each district. Therefore, I say at once the desire to secure one authority is admirable. But what does the Government do? It goes to the municipal Councils for this one authority. That was part of the scheme of the Bill of 1870. That Bill originally provided that the Town Council of the urban districts should select a number of persons to become a School Board; in the rural districts the vestry or select vestry was to select. The ad hoc scheme of election for School Boards was the result of a radical amendment that was moved. It is curious to notice that the first speaker in favour of the ad hoc scheme a against the municipalisation scheme of Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet was Lord Robert Montagu, who was leading the Ton opposition to the Bill. It is also curious to notice that the hon. Member in this House who told with my right hon. friend the Member for the Forest of Dean in favour of the ad hoc proposals, was no less a gentleman than the hon. Member for the Dartford Division, while the most strenuous opponents of the ad hoc scheme in place of municipal control were all the leading men of the Liberal administration. They were all strongly opposed to the ad hoc proposals. I will venture to read only one extract, which sounds very curious now from the speech of Mr. Mundella, the Vice-President of the Council at that time. Mr. Mundella said— He was satisfied that no greater mistake could be committed than that of leaving the School Boards to be elected by the popular vote. He contended that the best men would shrink from becoming candidates for a seat at such Boards, owing to the turmoil, abuse, and trouble they would have to endure during the election. The present Government has distinguished sanction for its scheme of municipalisation, as I have just endeavoured to show, and if it is content to know that it is now by this Bill where the Liberal Government was thirty years ago, I am content that it shall take that credit. But I hope it will not endeavour to push its scheme of municipalisation too far, and that it will not push it into the great county boroughs. The great county boroughs have had for the last thirty years these great ad hoc bodies, which bodies are deeply implanted in the affections of the labouring classes, and I feel if the Government persists in its intention of upsetting these great School Boards, especially in the great northern boroughs, it will find it has, to use a well-known American adage, "bitten off a good deal more than it can chew." I do not ask the Government to take my view of these great School Boards, the experience of which for the last thirty years is an educational asset, and should not be recklessly thrown on one side. But I venture to make an appeal to the Vice-President to modify the Government scheme of municipalisation so as to exempt these great borough School Boards from the operation of this. Bill. Nobody could be a more eloquent witness on behalf of them than the Vice-President. In the North American Review in October, 1896. he said these School Boards had greatly raised the level of education. I quote this because yesterday he said they were an anachronism.

SIR JOHN GORST

What I said was that the system of electing ad hoc authorities was an anachronism.

DR. MACNAMAEA

Well, I suppose the greater includes the less. The right hon. Gentleman said the effect of the School Board system was to raise the level of elementary education. Well, let us go on raising the level of elementary education. In the speech he made at Bradford on 11th January, 1899, the Vice-President said— It would be a most unfortunate tiling if the work of these Boards in the higher grade schools was interfered with. I want to know why we are interfering with it. But that is not all; in the same speech the Vice-President made the following comments— There was very much to he said for making the educational authority for all purposes such School Boards as now exist in many large cities. I will not plead for all purposes, because I doubt whether you could take away their educational work from the Municipal Councils. What I will plead for is this: that, with the view of getting something this session, these great School Boards should be continued as the authority for elementary education and re-instated in the position of ante- Cockerton which they occupied in 1870, that the School Boards should be continued in their functions, and that they and the municipal Councils should together form a Joint Committee for higher education. By that amalgamation, a Committee which could co-ordinate in the work of education so as to give all that could be required for the moment by the one authority, could be found.

Now let me examine a little more closely the so-called municipal scheme of this Bill. What are the functions of the authority spoken of so much today, and insisted upon as the one authority for all educational purposes? It has two things to do. First of all, it has to raise the money; and after, it has to select a number of persons to form the nucleus of the Committee. From that time forward the municipal authority has nothing whatever to do with education. The number of persons selected to form the Committee meet together and select a smaller number of persons who are to form the Educational Committee. We have heard tonight that there need not be on the Educational Committee a single member of the municipal body. I do not call that municipalisation. I call it spurious municipalisation, not genuine municipalisation. I speak all the more strongly because the right hon. Gentleman will remember that the Bill of 1896 and the Bill of 1901 both provided that the Education Committee should consist, as to a majority of its members, of the members of the Municipal Council in each case. There are some of us on this side of the House who are prepared to make very considerable sacrifices for the "one authority" idea, for the sake of the linkage of the schools, for the sake of the co-ordination of educational effort; but in the present form the Government are asking us to pay a very long price for these sacrifices. I do venture to appeal to the Government to revert to their earlier scheme—the scheme of 1896 and of 1901—and provide that a majority of the members of the Education Committee should be members of the Municipal Council. The Education Committee, as it stands under the terms of the Bill, is one remove from the ratepayers who find the money. But the Education Committee is not permitted to manage any schools at all. That is to be done by the existing managers, who are to add, if the Education Committee desire it, a number not more than one-third of their existing number. When you get down to the schools, therefore, you are two removes from the representatives of the people who find the money for this educational work. I do not like to be uncharitable about these proposals, but it looks suspiciously to me as if the design has been to keep the hand of the man who finds the money as far away from the schools as possible.

I make these two appeals to the Government. The first is that in this matter of the constitution of the local authority the majority of the members shall be members of the Municipal Council, and the second is that the managers of each school shall admit, if it is desired, at least a majority of the representatives of the Municipal Council. I see no fear involved in that. When I speak to the people who plead for rate aid for voluntary schools, their constant statement to me is that the Church people represent a majority of the people of this country. Then, why not trust the Church people? I think it is possible by statute, and certainly by practice, to continue denominational teaching, which I do not propose to upset at all. Let me say that at once Continue to give assurances that denominational teaching shall be continued, and yet satisfy the man who finds the money by giving his representatives or nominees in the case of the management the majority on the management committee in each case. The Education Committee is to have control of the secular instruction in all these schools. It is to have a veto over the appointment of the teachers, all questions affecting religion to be reserved and not subject to that veto. According to the Colonial Secretary, there are lots of other things involved the hours and curriculum of instruction, the salaries of the teachers, the nature of the appliances, and the arrangement of buildings, will all, according to the Colonial Secretary, be decided by the local authority, and, although the actual nomination of teachers is, in the case of the voluntary schools, reserved to the Committee of Management of such schools, the local authority will be able to veto the appointment or the dismissal of the teachers. On these points the Bill is very sketchy indeed; and, although these things are mentioned by the Colonial Secretary, they are not in the Bill. With his powerful assistance, however, I have no doubt they can be got into the Bill. But I cannot help thinking that the Colonial Secretary is wrong as to the dismissal of teachers. The Vice-President shakes his head There is a special clause which provides for the appointment of teachers, but there is no clause which deals with the dismissal of teachers.

SIR JOHN GORST

Clause 8 (a).

DR. MACNAMARA

That clause says that the managers of the school shall carry out any directions of the local authority as to the secular instruction to be given in chat school, but I do not read anything about the dismissal of teachers in that clause. Of course, it may be involved, but if so, why have a special clause when it comes to the educational authority having a veto over the appointment of teachers? If you want a special clause of the Bill for the appointment, why not get dismissal in that as well; or if Clause 8 (a) covers dismissal, why not appointment? With the Vice-President's assistance, perhaps we shall get the dismissal involved. As it is, I do not think the House will take vague assurances that Clause 8 (a), with its generalities, covers dismissal, when you require a special reference to appointment in another clause. Does the Vice-President say that the matter to which I am now going to refer is covered in Clause 8 (a)? It is a common thing on the part of voluntary managers to make it a condition of the appointment to a certain school that the school teacher shall undertake, compulsorily, a, number of duties quite extraneous to his work as a school teacher. It is quite a common thing to say to a man who is seeking an appointment, "If you get this appointment, will you play the organ? Will you train the choir? or, Will you superintend the Sunday school?" Sometimes an honorarium of £5 or £10 a year is added for these services; sometimes nothing is added. I am not suggesting that, if the teacher desires to play the organ, or train the choir, or superintend the Sunday school, he should not have the opportunity of doing so if he likes. But I am saying that he ought to be free to refuse it it he likes, without prejudice to the position he is seeking as school teacher. I do not know whether the Vice-President thinks a proscription of that kind is covered by Clause 8 (a), but I shall hope to put before the House, by way of Amendment, this injunction: that it shall not be right for any manager of a denominational school to insist that a teacher, to secure an appointment in a school receiving rate aid, shall perform, or shall abstain from performing, any duties in his own private time outside the school hours.

SIR JOHN GORST

That is in the Code now.

DR. MACNAMARA

It is in the Code that——

SIR JOHN GORST

The Code proscribes a form of contract, and anything beyond that is not part of the formal contract.

DR. MACNAMARA

Does the Vice-President seriously tell me here that the managers of voluntary schools do not make it a condition of appointment that a teacher shall undertake those duties?

SIR JOHN GORST

What I say is that it is no part of the contract of which the Board of Education takes cognizance. No Act of Parliament, and no Board of Education, can prevent extraneous agreements being made between the managers and the teachers of which they have no cognizance.

DR. MACNAMARA

If the House may be allowed to make it part of the contract, I shall be glad to ask the House to do so. I say it is manifestly unfair to give to the manager of a school, which is now to be entirely maintained by public sources, the right, with the appointment of a teacher, to obtain also, gratuitously in many cases, an organist, a trainer of a choir, or a superintendent of a Sunday school. That is an intolerable state of things, and if it is not in the present contract, all the worse for the present contract, and I hope an opportunity will be given to us to put it into the present contract. And if it is the fact that managers have to obey the local authority, as they have to under Clause 8, I hope we will have an opportunity to make it quite specific, especially when it is borne in mind that, in some cases, men are selected for these particular functions, rather than for their work as teachers in the school.

Now, leaving the question of the constitution and functions of the local authority, I should like to turn very briefly to the second great principle which this Bill desires to establish. I understand the second principle to be this—the frank abrogation of the endeavour to maintain education by voluntary contributions. I am very glad—I said so on the First Reading, and I say it now again—that that question has been raised. I consider it is a dangerous anachronism to endeavour to maintain education by charitable contributions. Education is too vital a matter to leave its maintenance to the fluctuating hand of charity in this particular way. I have always thought that education should be entirely maintained from public sources, and I congratulate the Government on having placed this matter before the House. What are the essential facts with regard to this financial maintenance of elementary education? I doubt very much if the actual circumstances would be tolerated for any length of time, if they were generally known. We have at the present time five and a half millions of children in elementary schools—three millions in the voluntary schools, and two and a half millions in the board schools. Both these classes of schools get financial assistance from the Exchequer, and from the localities. The nature and amount of the Exchequer grant is pretty much the same in each case, and I may, therefore, dismiss it. The local income in the case of board schools is an essential income coming from public sources, namely, the rates; the local income in the case of voluntary schools comes from private sources, namely, voluntary contributions. What is the net result? Last year the board schools found it necessary to draw on the rates, for this essential supplement, to the extent of 25s. 6d. per child, whereas the voluntary schools could only collect, by way of essential supplement, 6s. 5d. per child. There was practically a sovereign per child difference, but it has been mitigated by the special aid grant, so that, roughly, the disability at the present time is 15s. per child. I will give the House throe very brief contrasts, which will show at once the immediate results of this disability. Take, first of all, the quality of the teaching staffs in the two separate schools, in the board schools, 51 per cent. of the teachers are fully qualified certificated adult teachers; the other teachers being ex-pupil teachers, Article 68 teachers, and pupil teachers; neither of which class is entirely qualified. In the voluntary schools, 38 per cent. of the teachers are fully certificated adult teachers. Take another contrast. If we leave on one side Article 68 teachers, pupil teachers, and ex-pupil teachers, we find that certificated teachers in board schools were in the proportion of one to every seventy-six children, and in the voluntary schools one to every 103 children. Take another contrast. The payment for the teaching staff' per child last year—it is always the largest item in the maintenance account—was: in board schools 45s. 2d., and in voluntary schools 35s. 2d. I will give no more facts. I could give hundreds that would speak eloquently as to the lamentable condition of these voluntary schools. I am concerned about this, because these schools educate much the same class as board school children. They are the citizens of tomorrow, and I cannot shake off responsibility for these unhappy children and teachers, because of the anachronism of endeavouring to obtain education by voluntary contributions. I am very glad, therefore, that the question has been boldly raised. But why does the Government go to the rates? I read in the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation that education is a national service. The Report does not go the length of saying that it should be paid for out of national resources, but if it is a national service, I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the great bulk of the cost of maintenance should not fall on the national Exchequer rather than, to such a large extent, on the local rates. I think the First Lord of the Treasury, in his election campaign of 1895, made rather a prominent feature of the fact that he believed in the nationalisation of the charge for education. I have his election card here. Paragraph 9 states:— Poor Law and School Board rates to he charged on Imperial Exchequer. I have not heard that repudiated, but I believe it has been; and, therefore, it will go back to my pocket. But I believe it is a fact that, apart from this card altogether, the First Lord of the Treasury has, on more than one occasion, expressed his conviction that education should be viewed as a national charge, rather than, to the extent it is at present, a local charge.

I should like to ask the Vice-President, if he will, to be so good as to follow me into the effect of throwing on the rates this new charge. I take it that the existing voluntary contributions will be absorbed in the upkeep of the fabric. I do not think managers of voluntary schools have any idea of the big task now being put upon them. Keeping up the fabric of the schools, and providing lighting, ventilation, and heating up to the municipal standard, which is always, rightly, a very high standard, will be a very severe task. The special aid grant will be continued, and will mitigate the disability of 20s. down to 15s. To put the whole of the voluntary school children on the rates, at the very moderate estimate of 10s. a child, will increase the aggregate rate maintenance from £5,000,000 to £7,250,000. Is the educational zeal of this country sufficiently high that the mass of the people will gleefully and cheerfully contemplate such an increase in the rate maintenance as that? I confess I look with great anxiety at this particular proposal, because I am very doubtful ndeed whether the ratepayers will pay, not alone in the agricultural districts, but in the much more enlightened urban districts. There are 642 School Boards, out of a total of 2,544, which at present have a School Board rate of 1s. in the pound or more; 124 of these have a rate of 1s. 6d. in the pound or more; and twenty-nine have a rate of 2s. in the I pound and more. In many of these cases, you are now going to double the number of children who will be charged on the rates. Does the Vice-President mean to tell me that the people in these localities will find the money for children who will be placed on the rates under this Bill? Let me take one or two specific cases. Blackburn has an average attendance of 996 children in its board schools, and the rate is 3.56d. at present. That rate includes administrative charges, and I will take it that the present School Board administiation will cover the case of all children to be added. It also includes the cost of carrying out compulsory attendance, which, of course, covers the existing voluntary schools, and need not, therefore, be taken into consideration; it involves a sinking fund for the repayment of loans and interest on loans. To the 996 board school children we will add, tinder this Bill, no fewer than 18,258 voluntary school children. Worked out at the moderate estimate of 15s. per child, we get a total maintenance charge for the voluntary school children of £13,693. A penny in the pound in Blackburn brings in £2,000, so that the addition of the voluntary school children will increase the rate by 6½d. in the pound. Will the people of Blackburn view with equanimity their rate jumping from 3½d. to 10d.? I am very doubtful about it indeed. That may be an extreme case, owing to the small number of board school children and the large number of voluntary school children. But take the case of Gloucester. The average attendance in the board schools is 2,492 children, and the rate is 10d. There are 4,077 voluntary school children, and at the estimate of 15s. per child, their addition will mean a new rate charge of £3,058. A penny in the pound represents £735, and, therefore, you will have to introduce in Gloucester at one fell swoop a new rate of 4d., which with the existing rate of 10d. will make 1s. 2d. in the pound. Will the people of Gloucester view that with equanimity? I am a School Board member; I have fought three School Board contests; and I tell the Vice-President that the ratepayers make it pretty hot for us if we raise the rate by even a halfpenny. The real danger of this is that the School Board Peter—if I may put it so—will be robbed to pay the voluntary school Paul. The same rate, or a slightly increased rate, will be made to do service for the existing board school children, and the added voluntary school children, with the result that, so far from levelling up the voluntary schools, you will take from the flower of the work of board schools that which you add to the voluntary schools. Does any supporter of voluntary schools in this House desire that? I have heard it influential stated that what we want to do is to raise the voluntary schools to the level of the board schools, and I cannot contemplate with anything like equanimity the prospect of taking a portion of the money which now goes to board school children and giving it to voluntary school children. I am all for levelling up voluntary schools, but this going on the rates will undoubtedly mean in the bulk of cases that you will rob Peter to pay Paul, and, after the statement of the First Lord and the admission of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation, I should have thought it would have been more expedient to go for the further money required to the Imperial Exchequer rather than to the local rates.

Let me now say a few words with regard to the provisions of the Bill dealing with higher education. Does the House quite realise what the Bill has brought within the definition of higher education? First of all, all secondary education—and in towns that are not endowed with ancient benefactions a lot of money will be required to give secondary education anything like a proper beginning; then, the training of pupil teachers and all training of adult teachers in training colleges, and so on; and, in the third place, curiously enough—I do not know why it should be so—all night-school work, whether elementary or advanced. Either one of those three matters would take up the proceeds of a twopenny rate in any borough in the country. That means, if the Bill remains as it is, that higher education will be starved. I appeal for the striking out of this limit of twopence, and I believe the Government must in addition make provision for generous Exchequer grants for secondary education. This proposal means that, in the great bulk of cases, secondary education will be a local charge. I cannot understand why it should be. Unless the limit of twopence is struck out, I am confident that one of the three matters mentioned must suffer.

I now come to the last question, and I deal with it with great reluctance—the question of religious instruction in elementary schools. It is deplorable to the last degree that every time education comes under discussion in this country, the real issues are promptly obscured by theological disputants. It is a striking fact that substantially there is no religious difficulty in the schools themselves. I have been connected with elementary schools in one way or another—as pupil, pupil teacher, assistant teacher, head teacher, voluntary school manager, and School Board member—for the last twenty-five years or more, and in no capacity whatever have I ever heard of a single case of dissent on the part of a parent to any form of religious instruction. Of this I am quite certain, there are parts of the country in which the people would stand any form of religious instruction rather than pay a rate for it. The Vice-President is absolutely correct when he says there is no difficulty whatever in the schools. I was astonished, however, to hear him say there is no difficulty in regard to teacherships, and at his flat contradiction of the statement that there is a difficulty in regard to young Nonconformists who desire to become school teachers. The Vice-President cannot have been at Whitehall for seven years with his eyes closed. If he has been there with his eyes open, the facts must have come under his notice many times. It certainly came under my notice with a much shorter experience. He must know that under the trust deeds of eight out of ten village schools it is impossible for the managers to appoint anybody but a member of the Church of England. If the Vice-President does not know that, he is singularly lacking in the knowledge of his office. But that is not all. The Vice-President must know that a great many young Nonconformists who are employed in our larger towns by the School Boards as pupil teachers, apart from their particular religious faith, when they get to the end of their apprenticeship and have won a Queen's—now a King's—scholarship, which qualifies them for admission to a training college, find the greatest difficulty in getting into a training college because of their religious faith. I fancy I heard the right hon. Gentleman say that himself in December, 1899. For three years, 1898–9–00—I was Chairman of the London School Board Committee on Pupil Teachers, and every year it was pitiable the difficulty we had in getting our pupil teachers, who passed high up in the scholarship list, in the first class, into training colleges, if they did not belong to the Church of England. I should have thought that was notorious to those who had any knowledge of the working of the system. The Vice-President is aware of these facts, I suppose, because they are issued under his seal. There are 2,000 residential college places available every year. Of those 2,000, 1,433, or 70 per cent., are Church of England places. The Church has built those colleges. I wonder the Nonconformists have, not built more training colleges than they have. But I am simply stating the facts. Then, 117 are Wesleyan places, and 136 are Roman Catholic. That makes 1,686, or 84 per cent. of the entire number, leaving 314 undenominational places, and many of these undenominational places are occupied by persons who to my knowledge are members of the Church of England. There are, of course, 730 day training college places available every year, and I was glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman's colleague in the representation of Cambridge University not only admit this grievance, but urge that something should be done by way of providing more day training college accommodation. In 1898, to my personal knowledge, some of the Queen's scholars, who were very high in the list, had the greatest difficulty to get into a college. One girl who won a scholarship, which ought to have given her the right of admission to a training college, had to write to thirteen colleges before she could avail of her scholarship; another had to write to seventeen, and another to twenty-seven, and six first-class Queen's scholars did not get into college at all. I do not know whether that would be called a grievance——

SIR JOHN GORST

I call it a very great grievance, and I have frequently said so.

DR. MACNAMARA

I thought I heard something yesterday about the Psychological Society and ghosts which disappeared.

SIR JOHN GORST

That was an entirely different case. It had been represented in this House that Nonconformist boys and girls had been prevented by their religious faith becoming pupil teachers. I offered to make an investigation into any cases that were brought to me. Three cases were brought before me: I investigated each one of them, and each one turned out to be illusory.

DR. MACNAMARA

Again I say that the right hon. Gentleman's colleague in the representation of Cambridge University most frankly took him to task, and admitted there was a grievance. Nobody knows it better than the Whitehall officials. In the same year to which I was referring, some of the denominational colleges were taking in girls of the second class, 2,000 places down the list. I remember the Rev. Mr. Jephson, a clergyman of the Established Church, and a member of the London School Board, frankly telling the Board about this time that young Nonconformists, having won a scholarship high in the list, had come to him to be confirmed as members of the Church of England in order that they might avail themselves of the scholarship they had won by the merit of their work in examination. Let me give one specific case. A girl passed—I think it was in 1891—in the first class, No. 237. That is a very high position. She applied for admission to the Stockwell Training College—one of the three undenominational colleges. The Stockwell list was an exceptionally good one, and they had filled their sixty or sixty-five places before they reached this girl's position. She immediately wrote to the other two undenominational colleges, but they also had completed their number. I know, as a matter of fact, that that girl could have got into any number of Church of England colleges if she had cared to become a member of the Church of England. Does any Member of this House desire that? Nobody does. I am sure these facts are not sufficiently known, or the state of things would be remedied at once. What happened in this particular case? She had the alternative of either wasting a year or changing her religion for the time being. She wasted a year. In that very year the Truro Training College, which is a very excellent Church of England training college, took in a girl of the second class, No. 2,681. Why we should spend our money on a second class girl, No. 2,681, and refuse to train a first class girl, No. 237, passes my comprehension. This Bill does nothing to mitigate that evil.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Oh!

DR. MACNAMARA

I am very glad to hear that, and I hope that when I propose an Amendment to the clause dealing with religious instruction in places of higher education to the effect that in residential institutions there shall be a conscience clause, I shall have the support of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury. I think I heard an answer even in this House that it does not provide for the case of residential students, but that it does provide for day pupils. Let us make it apply to residential students. I am glad to see that we have practical unanimity on the Front Bench on this point, and I have no doubt whatever that my Amendment will be accepted.

With regard to elementary education, the scheme of the Government broadly is to leave things as they are—to leave the religious instruction in the hoard schools as it is, to leave the religious instruction in the denominational schools as it is, and to meet the objections to rate aid for denominational instruction by an offer of a separate school for the parents of thirty children if the local authority will grant it—which I think will be of very rare occurrence, having regard to the cost involved—or if the parents themselves or their Church can find the money. I have only one comment to make upon the thirty children scheme. It seems to me to be financially disastrous and educationally absurd. I cannot contemplate with equanimity a lot of little mushroom schools in any village; I would rather keep the unhappy children together in one school in childhood than separate them by denominations in this way. I admit that the question is one of extreme difficulty and delicacy; I do not know whether it is not entirely insoluble. But I do complain that the leaders of the Churches—particularly of the Free Churches never give us anything in the way of a constructive policy. We never get anything from them which will help us to solve this terribly difficult problem. They seem to me to be never happy unless they are denouncing somebody. Why the leaders of the two Protestant Churches—I leave the Roman Catholics on one side always—have not come to a concordat similar to that which they have in Scotland, passes my comprehension. In Scotland you have a universal system of public schools. In addition to that, there is religious instruction which is Biblical, plus the Shorter Catechism. Why cannot the leaders of the Protestant Churches in this country emulate the shrewd business capacity of the Scotch people? They, with all their zeal for theological disquisition, have not allowed the religious question to stand in the way of a proper educational system for their children. Why should not Dr. Temple, Dr. Clifford, Dr. Parker, and a few others, meet together and excogitate some practical working plan? At any rate, we are entitled to ask them for a contribution of that sort—for something beyond the merely destructive criticism which they bring. I am not a theologian, and therefore, perhaps, the matter does not present the difficulties to me that it does to them; but I see no reason why there should not be some common form, such as they have in Scotland, by which you could teach the Apostles' Creed, and so on, as a general form of religious instruction. Failing such a concordat, the Government might have met this matter in a better way than they have done. In the first place, I think they might have said to the managers of voluntary schools, "The secular instruction in these schools is inefficient; it lacks money, it must have money. We will take these schools over from you, paying you a substantial rental for the time during which secular instruction is being given; we will make ourselves exclusively and entirely responsible for that; you shall have the schools for an hour every day for religious instruction in your own faith and in your own way." I think that would have been a better plan; but I do not put it dogmatically; it is a delicate matter to deal with.

Then I would suggest another compromise. With regard to the board schools, there is an objection which this scheme does not meet at all—that the people who use the board schools cannot get exactly what they want in some cases. I have never found these people: I doubt very much whether they exist; I do not think they do exist in the case of parents who use the schools. But it is influentially stated that these people do exist. Why not give such people facilities for withdrawing their children outside the school premises to a mission hall, or a Sunday school, or a church during the hours of religious instruction, for them to be taught by their own denominational teachers, the children afterwards coming back to the school for the secular instruction? In that case voluntary schools could be met also by compromise. I venture to say that the religious instruction in voluntary schools, with the exception of the Roman Catholics, is very much more nearly undenominational than Members of this House have any idea of. It is substantially undenominational in the great bulk of cases; it has been made so because Churchmen and Nonconformists, especially in the villages, have worn the thing down to an irreducible minimum to avoid the incubus of a School Board rate. If that is so, why not frankly make it undenominational—I put this forward as a practical scheme, and. I hope, as a practical working educationist—on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, leaving the mid-day of the week for specific dogmatic and definite religious teaching?

I only wanted to make these suggestions, because I hope that even now it is not too late for a truce of Cod to fall on this unhappy problem, so that we may get on with the education of our children, and equip them for the heritage which is falling into their hands. I confess I cannot view with satisfaction the non possumus attitude and the flat rejection represented by the Amendment which has been moved. This matter is too vital and too urgent. The whole thing is too serious for us as a great political Party to meet it by a flat rejection. I want to make four suggestions to the first Lord of the Treasury, and if in the course of the debate he is good enough to give me an answer I shall be glad.

First, I suggest that on the Education Committee we should go back to the scheme of 1896 and 1901, and insist on a majority of the members of the Committee being members of the Municipal Council. The second suggestion is that, having taken all steps to secure that the denominational instruction shall not be interfered with, you shall give the locality through the Education Committee the right to nominate a majority of the managers of each case. The third suggestion is that, in the case of the great county boroughs, if the City Council agree that the School Board shall be continued as the authority for elementary education, the City Council and the School Board together shall form a joint authority for higher education. The fourth suggestion is that you shall concede the principle of getting more money from Imperial aid instead of from local aid. If I can get satisfactory answers to those four suggestions, the First Lord of the treasury is welcome to my vote on the Second Beading of this Bill.

(10.45.) THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. WALTER LONG,) Bristol, S.

I think we have a surer foundation of hope for the final settlement of this education question question which is dealt with in the Bill now under consideration in the speech of the hon. Member for North Camberwell than in any of the excellent speeches which have been delivered during the two days which this debate has lasted. The hon. Member who has just sat down has a right to speak as an authority upon educational questions, but I venture to say that all his remarks this evening have been mostly directed to what I may perhaps be permitted to call Committee consideration rather than Second Reading consideration. I hope in saying this that I am not making any remarks wanting in respect or appreciation of what the hon. Member has said, but I am rather indicating that the points he has raised upon which he asks for an expression of opinion from my right hon. friend the First Lord of the Treasury, are points more for the Committee than for the Second Reading stage. The hon. Gentleman said that he could not endorse the suggestion which has proceeded from the Front Bench that this Bill should be rejected wholesale, having regard to the gravity and importance of the interests to be served. I think all who have listened to this debate so far as it has proceeded, must feel that that is the spirit which is generally prevalent in the House. Members on both sides of the House have approached the consideration of this great educational problem with evident sincerity and with an evident desire to approach it in a practical spirit. The two speeches to which we have listened last, one from the hon Gentleman opposite and the other from the hon. Member for one of the Divisions of Islington, have dealt with Committee questions. The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down finished his speech by making one or two suggestions. The First Lord of the Treasury has heard those suggestions, and no doubt he will say what he thinks about them when he concludes the debate. Whatever is necessary to be done in this respect may be done at a later stage. I think it has been recognised on all sides that the time has come when there ought to be a settlement of these educational difficulties, and the reception which this Bill has met with shows that in the measure before the House there is an opportunity offered for the settlement of many of those difficulties, although this Bill may not take the precise form advocated by some hon. Gentlemen opposite. In some of the speeches we have listened to, although they have been interesting and effective, there is not the same hopefulness. In the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen who moved the rejection of this Bill, there is very little to be found which is suggestive, or which, following the example of the hon. Gentleman opposite, would enable the Government to amend their Bill so as to make it more consistent with the ideas of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. He criticised our Bill in detail and in general, and he made very few suggestions which were consistent with the main principles of the Bill, or which would help, if carried out, to solve the difficulty. He indulged in a great many hopes, and he laid down a great many ideals as to what ought to be attained in education, but he never attempted to show that this Bill if it passes into law, will not enable those hopes to be realised and those ideals to be reached. We believe that this Bill offers an opportunity for a distinct advance in regard to education, and we believe further that those ideals, with many of which we are in deep sympathy, can be reached under the new methods which are proposed in this Bill.

What are the main objections which have been advanced by right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Gentlemen opposite? It has boon said, in the first place, that this proposal of ours is not a real reform, that the local authorities are not fit to be entrusted with these new powers, and that they are not competent and not worthy to be made education authorities. I will examine that proposition in a moment. It seems to me that in criticising our proposals and in formulating their attack upon the Government Bill, right hon. Gentlemen and hon. Gentlemen opposite have failed altogether to realise what the real problem is with which the Government found itself confronted when it was called upon to deal with this education question. What surprises me is that one suggestion which is made oftener than any other on the opposite side of the House has been that we ought not to have dealt with elementary and secondary education at the same time, but that we ought to have dealt with secondary education now and elementary education subsequently. Everybody on this side of the House knows that from time to time the utmost pressure has been exercised by hon. Gentlemen opposite upon the Government to produce their education scheme. They know as well as we know that in regard to both secondary and elementary education difficulties have arisen which require a solution, and it amazes me when I find hon. Gentlemen opposite saying that we ought to postpone the settlement of elementary education and deal only with secondary education. What are the existing circumstances at the present time? Is it not generally admitted that whatever may have been the results of the settlement arrived at in 1870, at the present time, in regard to elementary education, there is a breakdown in the system which the Act of 1870 brought into existence. When you come to examine the board school system or the voluntary schools system you find them both unsatisfactory because they fail to provide the educational machinery which is required, and the system has come under the condemnation which has been expressed on both sides of the House by responsible speakers. I think this goes to show that the board school system has not proved satisfactory in the smaller districts, and even in some of the larger urban districts it has produced difficulties and confusion, while in regard to the voluntary schools there can be no doubt that they are in a very grave and critical condition.

They may be divided into three classes: (1) Those which are suffering from the poverty of the district in which they exist, and which are unable to maintain themselves in the face of modern demands; (2) those who exist in districts where there are also board schools, and who are threatened with destruction by the competition to which they are exposed; and (3) the voluntary schools which are prosperous and which exist in what may be described as the wealthy districts. In regard to the first class of these schools can anyone who has examined the question doubt for a moment that unless something is done, and done promptly, a great many of those voluntary schools must disappear? Some hon. Gentlemen opposite say that if they disappear because they cannot be maintained, let them go, and let board schools take their place. But are those hon. Members prepared to make that recommendation, admitting, as they do, that in the rural districts and the smaller towns the board school system has broken down? If it be true that the great majority of our voluntary schools are in this condition, and if it be true that your board schools cannot replace them satisfactorily except at an enormous cost to the country, can it be urged against the Government that we ought to delay dealing with this elementary problem and deal now only with secondary education, leaving elementary education to be dealt with three or four years hence? It is evident that the demand of the voluntary schools is one that must be listened to, and whether we deal with it as the Government suggest or by some other method the plea for postponement is one which cannot be justified. There have been many predictions that as a result of the passing of this Bill all voluntary contributions would cease. The same statements were made when the special aid grant was given to the voluntary schools in 1897, but subsequent facts have shown that those suggestions were altogether groundless. On the contrary, has it not been shown conclusively that the whole of that special aid grant amounting to some £600,000 a year has gone in improvements, in increased cost of maintenance and additions to our voluntary schools. Btt although Parliament voted that sum of money in order to help the voluntary schools, the position of those schools is today, in some respects, even worse than before; because although the contributions have been maintained the additional cost has been increased by a sum far exceeding the grant made by Parliament. I am not going to say that all the voluntary contributions will be maintained after the passing of this Bill, but I am entitled to point to the fact that the same views expressed today upon this point were held five years ago as to the effect of the action of Parliament upon voluntary subscriptions, and that they have been proved to be without foundation. I believe myself that, just as patriotism and devotion on the part of the supporters of denominational schools has forced them in circumstances of great difficulty to maintain their voluntary subscriptions during past years whatever action Parliament may take, the great majority of them will maintain their subscriptions rather than allow voluntary schools to suffer by the withdrawal of their contributions. The fact remains that voluntary schools have suffered and are suffering now. You may say that the voluntary system is a wrong system, and should be replaced, but the fact remains, which must be faced by Parliament, that unless you deal with voluntary schools in this way you will have to replace them by board schools, or some other system at the enormous cost which has been described by the hon. Member for Cambridge University; and which if you look at it from an economical point of view will mean the laying upon this country of an enormous charge amounting to many millions of money. My hon. friend the Member for the Cambridge University said it would involve some £26,000,000 to be spent in the erection of schools to take the place of existing voluntary schools, and not only this but also a very heavy rate for the maintenance of those schools. The right hon Gentleman who has just sat down dealt with this question very fully, and he told us that the Bill proposed by the Government would involve a rate of 4d. or 5d. in some places, and in the case of Blackburn a rate of 6d. in the pound. But supposing the Government proposals were not made? The hon. Gentleman admitted that the case he quoted was not quite a fair sample because in that instance there are a great number of voluntary schools. What is the alternative? The present system is a School Board rate, and therefore the choice is not between a rate of 3d., 4d., 5d., 6d., or nothing, but between the 4d. and 3d. rate and the existing rates which vary from 1s. or 1s. 1d. and the rate which will he necessary if the School Board system is to take the place of the voluntary system. I submit that the comparison which has been made is not a fair one. The comparison must be made between the rate involved by this Bill and the rate which would be inevitable if the School Board system was to take the place of voluntary schools.

There is only one class of voluntary schools where the case appeals to be a ready hard one. It is the case of a school where the existing income is sufficient through the generosity of the people who make voluntary contributions. Undoubtedly here the case is a, hard one. But bearing in mind that they will be called upon to make contributions in order that the great majority of voluntary schools may receive that assistance which they require, I do not think that they will feel that any great injustice is being done to them. One or two speakers on the opposite side have suggested that this ought not to be a rate question at all, and that the money should be taken out of the National Exchequer. Hon. Members opposite are very free with their suggestions about the public Exchequer when sitting in Opposition, but when they are sitting on the Ministerial side of the House they are not quite so ready to suggest that such burdens should be cast upon the Exchequer. Apart from any question of that kind I, at all events, speak not only in the capacity of the position which I occupy now, but from all my past experience as one keenly interested in this question of local taxation, and I do not yield to anybody in my desire that the distribution of local taxation should be, fair and just; but I have never associated myself with those who advocate a transfer to the National Exchequer of the entire cost of education. I do not think that hon. Gentlemen opposite who so lightly talk about the transfer of this educational burden to the Imperial Exchequer realise what the proposal is which they are making. My right hon. friend the Member for Dartford referred to my own county of Wiltshire, and I listened to what he said with the greatest possible pride. He was able to show the good work which had been done in connection with education by that county. But the county of Wiltshire is a poor county, with almost an entirely agricultural population, and the class of education required in Wiltshire differs from that which may be desirable in Lancashire and Yorkshire or some other of our manufacturing counties. One reason why I believe this Bill will effect a valuable and salutary reform is that it will put into the hands of local authorities a power and control they have never yet enjoyed—to supply an educational system fitted to their needs. How does that apply to this question? It is said that you are to throw the cost of education on the Exchequer and not upon the local rates. [An HON. MEMBER: Mainly.] As the hon. Member knows, at the present time a very large proportion of the cost of education falls upon the Exchequer, and the suggestion now made is that you are to throw a very much larger proportion of the cost of education upon it. Sec what the effect would be. Under the present system you are going to give to the rating authority a very large share in deciding what shall be the system and standard of education in its own county. The cost of that will fall upon that particular county, but under the Exchequer system the poorer counties will have to share in the cost of providing the more expensive education required and desired in the richer manufacturing districts as well as to provide for the cost of education in their own county. I think it is worthy of consideration by all local taxation reformers to consider whether in matters of this kind where the standard differs and where the cost varies it might not be desirable to leave the greater part of the burden, at all events, to be borne by the locality. Hut there is this further difficulty. If there is to be an Exchequer grant made, is that grant to be so arranged as to vary from year to year with the variations in the expenditure. You have already your Exchequer grant. You have given this 5s. to voluntary schools, and it has been swallowed up by the additional cost of maintenance. If you increase your Exchequer grant you will still be in some difficulty. I believe the true solution is to be found in the change which the Government propose to make giving the local authorities the power to control education, and leaving it to them to find the funds necessary for the education which they desire to give. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean said the other evening, and I was very sorry to hear it, that these local authorities, manned largely as they were by farmers, would not be likely to take a, friendly view of education. I do not think that is a fair or a just description of the attitude of agricultural communities towards education. Why is it that agricultural communities have laid themselves open to this charge? It is because hitherto they have had forced upon them rightly or wrongly standards of efficiency which they believe to be unsuitable and unfitted to their needs. [A laugh.] The right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of Dean laughs.

SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucestershire, Forest of Dean)

My complaint was that they forced their standards down.

MR. WALTER LONG

Their objection has not been against education itself, but against a system which did not suit their localities, and against standards which were unsuited to their requirements. I say that if you give them the power to exercise control and to provide what they think is needed in their particular district I think you will find them as liberal with their ideas, and as ready to approach this question in a wide spirit as any other class of the community. If hon. Members doubt this statement I refer them to the practical evidence adduced by my right hon. friend the Member for Dartford and others. If this statement is doubted look at the action of the County Councils all over the country in regard to secondary and technical education and see what they have done. It is not correct to say that they have only spent the whisky money. But supposing this statement it correct—I put on one side that portion of the expenditure which has been found out of the rates. Under the existing law the County Councils have a discretionary power as to the application of what is called the whisky money. In the vast majority of cases they have exercised that discretion in applying it to an excellent system of education, although they might have devoted it to the relief of rates. They have not done so, and I share the view of the hon. Member for South Islington that you ought not to change that discretion into compulsion now. This is a discretionary power which has been well exercised by the County Councils, and they have shown themselves both competent and willing to spend their money in the promotion of technical and secondary education. I believe you will find that if you give them, as this Hill proposes, the power of control not only over the expenditure, but over the standard, and the system of education, and the method to be adopted, they will be found to be as progressive and as liberal as any other governing body that can be chosen.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen, when moving the rejection of the Bill, was severe on the local authorities, and in passing, I may say that he criticised very much the Government proposals in regard to unification. He said "Where is your single authority? You have given the smaller boroughs and the urban district councils autonomy." I would have liked very much to know what he would have said if the Government had proposed to take away this autonomy. I think the Government are entitled to ask the Opposition to tell them what is the meaning of this criticism as to the want of unification. Do they mean that we take away from the boroughs and the urban districts powers which they now possess in regard both to secondary and elementary education? Because if they do not mean it their criticism of the Government proposals is neither candid nor honest. [Cries of "Oh!"] I adhere to what I say. If they do not mean by their criticism that we are wrong, and that they would do differently in our place, they admit the fact that it must be dealt with in this way. They fail to realise that in dealing with these questions of local government, whether education or other matters you cannot deal with this country as if it were a new country with our old institutions already in existence. They have already their own School Boards and other educational arrangements, and I do not believe that if the Opposition were in our place they would have ventured to try to take away those powers, and if they did I do not hesitate to say that their proposals would not have held water up to the Second Beading or after. What we have done is to provide what we believe to be the best system consistent with that we already find in existence, tearing up as little as possible by the roots, and aiding as much as we can existing institutions, so as to enable them to do their work.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen said these local authorities are not fit for the work they have to do. I confess it has been astonishing to me to listen to the speeches of hon. Gentlemen opposite. When I first came into Parliament they were always advocating the giving of fresh powers to popularly elected bodies. They never could say enough for the Borough Councils of this country because they were popularly elected. Where is all that confidence gone now I Before this debate closes there will not be a shred of confidence left in the popularly elected municipal authorities of this country. [Opposition cries of "Oh."] I know that the truth is always unpalatable. Hon. Members opposite do not like this description of their own statements; perhaps they do not even recognise it. But the Bill proposes that these authorities shall appoint Committees to administer the educational work of their areas. I should have thought it a natural inference from the views of hon. Members that this duty should be left to them. But hon. Gentlemen opposite say, "No, you cannot trust them; you must force them to have on that body a majority of their own members." We have been taunted that this Hill is retrogressive because in the Hill of 1896 it was proposed that there should be a majority elected from the municipal body on these Committees, whereas now it is thought better to leave something to the discretion of the municipal authority. Further, we have realised that the municipal body or the County Council may require more than one Committee to deal with these educational questions, and have felt that there may be some difficulty in securing more than one Committee if it is obligatory that every Council should appoint a majority of its Members, and, therefore, with absolute confidence in the municipal bodies and the County Councils, and with certainty that they will exercise their discretion wisely, we have given them wide powers. We are told by hon. Gentlemen opposite that those powers ought not to be given to them, and that these bodies are not fit to be entrusted with educational matters. But what is there in the Borough Councillor, the County Councillor, or the Urban District Councillor which makes him so utterly different from the member of one of our School Boards? I venture to say that if you are going effectually and satisfactorily to reform local government, you can only do it by concentrating the authority in single hands. It is all very well for hon. Gentlemen to denounce their fellow countrymen for not taking part in local affairs, but if local bodies are multiplied, and elections also, the electors are mystified, and you render it practically impossible to secure good management. Concentrate your duties in the hands of one or two bodies and enable your electors to know the men they are electing to undertake the management of local affairs, and you will make it easy for those who have to elect, and attractive for those who are to be elected. It is only by methods of that kind that you will receive the good administration you desire. What is it that everybody desires? It is not that the administrative work of the country shall be progressive? And are we less likely to get improved facilities and advantages of education if we put the power in the hands of the local authority charged with the main conduct of affairs in the locality, who know the difficulties and what is wanted? I admit that County Councils have been but a short time in existence, but an impartial examination of their history shows that they have done their work well. But the great Town Councils have had better opportunities, and I am astounded to hear hon. Gentlemen opposite, who generally, I do not quite know why, claim specially to represent the great towns, express a want of confidence in the ability of these municipal authorities to discharge educational work. [Opposition cries of "No."] It is all very well for hon. Gentlemen to cry no, but they have made speech after speech against this Bill because it proposes to transfer educational powers from the School Boards to municipal authorities. The history of these bodies shows that they can be entrusted with the work of education, and that they can provide men as competent to deal with it as have been found on our School Boards. Do hon Gentlemen opposite not believe that the men who form the municipal authorities are as a rule well qualified to deal with the work of education? [An HON. MEMBER: And water.] I do not quite understand the hon. Gentleman's interruption. He forgets that in connection with the subject on which he interrupts me the Government proposal is that the Metropolitan boroughs of London are suggested as those who ought to form the authority to deal with water, and therefore we have carried out in that case the identical principle I am advocating.

The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberdeen said that the local authorities were unwilling to accept these duties, and he quoted one or two that passed resolutions before the Bill was introduced. I do not think it worth while to stop to examine resolutions passed before the Bill was introduced. Obviously since the introduction of the Bill, the local authorities have had little opportunity to examine the question, but already some local authorities have spoken out, and if the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to quote one Riding of Yorkshire we are entitled to turn to the great county of Lancashire, where education has formed a leading subject for many years both in town and country. There the County Council is presided over by a gentleman who was once a distinguished Member of this House and who sat on the Liberal Front Bench—Sir John Hibbert. It has passed a resolution expressing not only its willingness to take over the work both of elementary and secondary education, but further than that their determination and willingness to provide for the cost out of the rates. That at all events is a declaration more explicit and more modern than those of the right hon. Gentleman. We have been taunted because we have omitted Loudon from the Bill, and we are told that this is another instance of our hostility to London. I was immensely amused at the way in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen dragged the question of the London Water Bill into his speech. It was singularly mal à propos, and in no way illustrated the point he was seeking to make; but no one could blame him for it, because we know that it is the one subject on which he can secure the cheers and the united support of hon. Gentlemen behind him. The right hon. Gentleman and the House generally know that in nearly all these questions of local government London has always been dealt with separately, I do not think the Government has any reason to complain of the attitude which the House has taken towards the Bill in this discussion. The gravity of the question has been recognised by most hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. We hold as strongly as any one opposite that this question of education, both secondary and elementary, is one of surpassing importance; we believe that we are giving the local authorities powers which they are both competent and willing to exercise; and we believe that in this measure will be found a real and solid step towards the development of education. We believe that it gives to the local authorities what they are entitled to have, not merely the power of spending money but the power of exercising control and of laying down conditions. We are not afraid that they will be unwilling to bear this responsibility. We are not doubtful that they will do the duty with credit to themselves and advantage to the country. Holding these views we ask the House to accept the Bill which we have laid before it. We are confident, not only that the House will pass the Bill, but that the country will approve of it, and that it will be productive of advantage to the people of this country today and hereafter.

(11.26.) SIR BRAMPTON GUEDON (Norfolk, N.)

In discussing the Bill now before the House, I must leave to others who are more capable the question of higher education. Nor do I wish to enlarge upon the religious question, although I look with dismay upon the blow dealt to the simple plain Bible teaching which has been so successful in Board Schools, and in some Voluntary Schools. I do not pretend to know any thing of the work of Town Councils or Borough School Boards, but I should like to say a word in regard to the rural schools which have received more abuse than attention in the course of the present debate. I have served on County Councils since they came into existence, and I have had considerable experience of rural schools, both board and voluntary; a happy, successful, and economical (for efficiency and economy generally go hand-in-hand) experience of Board Schools, and an unhappy, unsuccessful, and costly experience of Voluntary Schools. I have never met any one who has really served on a School Board who did not prefer the business-like government of School Boards to the necessarily hap-hazard administration of the Voluntary School; and I wish to accentuate the loss of efficiency and economy which must necessarily result in parish schools if the Bill were passed in its present form. In the small rural schools there would be a waste of money without any corresponding gain of efficiency. As the county rate increases, efficiency will decrease. The same carelessness which will induce the managers to spend money because the cost comes out of the county rate, will induce them to say that it does not signify about the efficiency of the school, because their grants go into a common fund. I have no objection to the County Council as the authority for technical instruction. I believe it is the right authority. I think a great deal may be done to improve technical education, to frame schemes of secondary education, and to get together in one comprehensive useful scheme, those small scholarships which the charity and benevolence of our ancestors have scattered about the country. I do hope that in dealing with secondary education, the county authority will take care not to turn the good, intelligent, hard-working, high class artisan or mechanic, into an inferior second class clerk. I have seen so much in my own parish and neighbourhood of men who had only had an elementary school training, getting into high and responsible positions, that I rather dread what might happen. I think that secondary education must be carefully managed, so that the class of men to whom I refer will not go into situations as clerks in small country towns to struggle with a salary of £70 or £80 a year. I should prefer that the County Council Committee should be appointed from inside the Council. The difficulty with an outside Committee is that they cannot be responsible to the County Council and that they cannot be through the County Council responsible to the electors who are in fact the parents of the children. I think the right hon. Baronet the Member for Forest of Dean instanced the Standing Joint Committee as having the same fault. Being a mixed body it is not responsible to quarter sessions, and it cannot be responsible to the County Council. The Vice-President mentioned that the County Councils are elected on a less restricted franchise than this House. It is less restricted because it includes women, but it is more restricted because there is no service franchise. I regret that men who by their brains and industry become foremen, bailiffs, and headmen are deprived of the vote because there is no service franchise for the County Council.

The fault we find with the Bill is that we cannot understand how the County Council can undertake the management of rural schools. The right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench are naturally so occupied in the high affairs of State that they have not the same opportunity as humble county Members of knowing everyday rural life, and I do not think they thoroughly understand what the work of the School Board is. Part of the work of the School Board is to look after attendances, and if it is a competent Board they divide the cases and go and reason with the parents and endeavour to show them the folly of not sending their children to school. The School Board orders books and stationery, fuel and light, and necessary repairs of the building; it decides when the use of the school may be granted for meetings or entertainments. Over such matters the County Council can have no control whatever. The County Council might pay salaries, and fix holidays, though at some inconvenience, but all the details of management must necessarily be left to the school managers. The proposal to pay all the grants into a common fund will leave no incentive whatever for efficiency, and the County Council will have no control whatever over the managers, because the highest punishment which can be inflicted on them is the entire withdrawal of the grant. The managers will care nothing for that, and the county will suffer. There will be no incentive for economy whatever. Hon. Members who have not had official experience cannot know what an enormous amount you can spend on petty expenses such as copy books and slate pencils. We all know that coal is cheap in summer and dear in winter, and under efficient management care is taken to buy at a favourable time, but managers will have no incentive to economy of that kind in future. These things may seem small, but if hon. Members do not think that small sums mount up to enormous totals let them look at the, Vote for Stationery and Printing on which the State spends hundreds of thousands of pounds. We, on the Public Accounts Committee, are examining the accounts of the South African War, and the House will be astonished to learn the waste of money on small items, such as damaged saddlery, rotten putties, condemned meat tins, mounting up to hundreds of thousands of pounds, if not millions. It will be the same with the schools. Take the case of a charwoman. A respectable widow is engaged to look after a school. The squire will give her half a ton of coals, and the parson will give her some soup, and some other kind person will pay her rent, while the Board will give her 3s. a week. But if this Bill becomes law, the local authority, which will consist of the parson, the squire, and the other kind person, will say, "We must give this poor respectable widow a better salary than 3s. a week; let us pay her 7s. 6d. a week; then she will be able to pay for her own coals and rent, and do without the parson's soup." And so the rates rise year after year. The County Council can never exercise control over these incidental expenses. The only item they can control is the salary of the teachers, and that is the worst form of economy possible.

What I regret most in this Bill is its retrograde tendency. We gave the parents of the children in 1870 the management of their own education, and now we are taking it away from them. I saw a letter in the papers the other day in which it was stated that the School Boards were inefficient because Tom, Dick, and Harry were elected; but it must be remembered that Tom, Dick, and Harry are the parents of the children. I do not wish to use the old familiar arguments against the squire and the parson; I never knew a parson or a squire who was of the slightest use who had any trouble whatever in getting elected on to a School Board, or who did not welcome the assistance of their parishioners. Tom, Dick, and Harry. There is a sub-section to Clause 12 which provides that the County Council may hand over education to Parish Councils. If that were done I should not complain. We in small parishes do not like the cumulative vote. We know that in the very large School Boards the elections are carried on on religious lines; but in our small country School Boards we have no religious difficulty. I have had the honour of being a Chairman of a large rural School Board, and we have always had two Church of England clergymen and the foremost Nonconformists upon it, and we have never had a dispute. My hon. and learned friend the Member for Warwick stated that the education in towns is good, in the country bad. I entirely traverse the statement that the education in rural parishes is bad I believe it is with some few exceptions excellent. I knew my learned friend when he was 12 years old; he was just as amusing as he is now; I never knew a boy with a keener sense of humour; but as to high and dry education, I believe I could produce boys from the parish schools who are just as well educated at twelve years of age as he was himself. Since that time he has bad the advantage of an Eton education, the best in the world, and he has become an ornament to this House and to the Bar. I quite agree that in many cases the parish is too small an area, but, on the other hand, a union is too large an area. I should like to see the county divided into educational districts of from 1,000 to 2,000 population, the educational authority to consist of representatives from each Parish Council. There is no reason, of course, why, if there were five or six schools in the district area, one of them should not provide a higher grade education. I know that His Majesty's Government are sure to pass this Bill, but I am inclined to think that after it has been working for two or three years, and when the people find that their rates are increasing, and that the efficiency of the education is decreasing, the present Government will not carry a single county seat in East Anglia, except, perhaps, that of my hon. and gallant friend the Member for Chelmsford, who has given notice of an Amendment against the Bill. I should be sorry to miss my hon. friend from this House, as I have now taken part in a debate which so much showed the necessity of his short Speech Rule, and as I wish to come within that Rule, I will only say that I view with great alarm the increase of expense, and what is still worse, the decrease of efficiency which I am sure will follow in rural schemes if representation is taken away, and if management is not co-incedent with the area of taxation. It is because I see no hope of the Bill being amended so as to give efficiency and economy that I am compelled to vote for the Amendment.

(11.48.) MAJOR RASCH (Essex, Chelmsford)

I am not a Chairman of a School Board, or a fanatic on higher education in the agricultural districts, and therefore I have not the right to address the House for three-quarters of an hour as so many hon. Members have done during the last few days. I am an agricultural Member, and am sent here by my constituents who, I think, pace the hon. Member for North Camberwell, are quite as intelligent as the voters in the Old Kent Road. Under the circumstances, I do not imagine that hon Members will expect me to build an opulent shrine to the First Lord of the Treasury. We are not grateful to him for scourging us with scorpions instead of with whips. I venture to say that in the agricultural districts we have no objection to education. We are as well able to talk platitudes about it as any bon. Member. What we resent very much is the statement made by an hon. Member of this House that we are Tony Lumpkins sheltering behind the President of the Council. We deny that. We do not object to education. We can stand a certain amount of it. We read a speech delivered at Bristol by the hon. Member for North Camberwell, in which he said that agricultural Members maintained that if all the money spent on education had been spent on artificial manures it would have been better for the country. Now that is not what we say. That is what is said for us; but we draw the line somewhere. We draw the line where education ceases to be of the slightest use to the children, and imposes a heavy burden on the rates. The common sense of the matter is that we know that large areas of land have gone out of cultivation in East Anglia in consequence of low prices and high taxes, and the First Lord of the Treasury is going to impose an additional tax on the land of something like £3,000,000 a year. What is the sense of this megalomania for teaching, in Shakesperian phrase, the musical glasses to agricultural labourers' children and cramming them with useless knowledge with the one hand, and taking the bread and cheese out of their mouths with the other? What do hon. Members think of agricultural labourers' children? Do they imagine that when they leave school they turn into professors or Members of Parliament? They do not want your higher education; they do not want your curriculum, or whatever hon. Members choose to call it. I have my philosophic doubts as to whether it is possible to improve this Bill, because from my point of view, viz., that of the agricultural districts, the Bill is so bad that it cannot be improved. If the right hon. Gentleman had taken one or two agricultural Members of common sense into his confidence—I do not myself move in his exalted circles—I think he might have made a better job of it. What we agricultural Members want is to give security of tenure to the teacher; that secular education alone should be given in State-aided schools; and that the education imparted to agricultural children should be such that they would profit by it in after life. But the Government do not accept our advice, and are now likely to take away the only ewe lamb left in the Bill, and that is the permissive clause. It is useless for an agricultural Member to speak against the Bill, which, of course, will be carried by the enormous majority. Having represented an agricultural district in South-East Essex for fourteen years, I think I may consider myself as an epitome and incarnation of agricultural distress, but I am aware that nothing I can say will have much effect on the fortunes of the Bill, although I have my vote against the Second Reading. The right hon. Gentleman has introduced three education Bills. Two of them have joined the majority, and, as Lord Curzon used to say, we may have an intelligent anticipation of events before they come off, and I hope and believe that my anticipation in regard to this third Bill will come off. I must say that we do not object to education; what we object to is placing the whole crushing cost of it upon the rates. If the right hon. Gentlemen were to put the expense of education on the broad shoulders of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, rustic Members, as The Times calls them, would not have much to say against the Second Reading of this Bill.

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