EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.

HC Deb 07 May 1906 vol 156 cc1065-100

Order read, for Adjourned Debate on to Question, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

Which Amendment was, To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day six months.'"—;(Mr. Wyndham.) Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question.

SIR HENRY CEAIK,

resuming his speech, said:—;Under the new regulation the voluntary schools were the safety valve in regard to the religious teaching which was denied to the children in public schools. That compromise then was made possible only by the fact that voluntary schools retained their freedom. For more than thirty years they continued educating three-fifths of the children, and with voluntary contributions amounting to 7s. a head against 35s. from the public grant. That is to say, voluntary subscriptions met one-fifth of the cost and left the State without any burden for the religious education given in the schools. But what wonder that under the new conditions the difficulties of voluntary schools increased? The subscribers had to bear their share of rates for schools from which they and their children derived no benefit. The standard of school-building and school equipment rose, the standard of education got higher and higher, and their resources were necessarily crippled. At the same time, the local authorities questioned the efficiency of these schools and claimed a share of authority in their management, a claim which the State had never made. The Act of 1902 gave that share of management and rightly added to it the duty of contributing to the maintenance to help the necessities of these schools. The Act gave them the power of regulating the whole of the secular instruction, fixing the salaries of the teachers, and regulating their appointment and dismissal save and except in regard to religious instruction. I am ready to admit that it was a hazardous experiment and I hope hon. Members opposite will credit me with an honest desire to understand their point of view. The experiment was hazardous, but it was not unjust that in return for having a share in the management the local authorities should be compelled to bear a share in the burden of maintaining them. I am quite willing to admit that there were under the Act of 1902 certain inequalities, I will not say certain injustices. There were one or two provisions in that Act which I would gladly see altered. The voluntary subcribers had still to bear the cost of premises, which more than covered the cost of religious education. I should have preferred that instead of taking that form, the contribution should have been ear-marked for religious education. I should have preferred also that the voluntary schools had had the option of remaining outside the scope of the local authority and receiving grants as before. I should have preferred also that the rights of minorities should have been better secured by Sections 8 and 9 of the Act of 1902, and that even in single-school areas, schools should have been deemed necessary when, in the words of the Scottish Act, they were "required, regard being had to the religious belief of the parents for whose children they were intended." This might have been costly, but it would not at least have cost that £1,000,000 a year, which the right hon. Gentleman lightly proposes to throw into his Bill without one jot tittle or iota of educational benefit.

And now what is to be done under this new Bill? It begins with a measure which, in spite of the denunciations of the Chancellor of the Duchy, I must still call, as I believe it to be, a sweeping scheme of confiscation, in which trusts are treated with callous indifference. If no arrangement is made under Clause 2 they are left under Clause 8 to an unequal contest before the triumvirate of Commissioners, with all the chances against them. There are aggravations of this star-chamber process which I leave other Members to expose, as I wish to confine myself to the educational effects of the Bill. As a meagre sop we are allowed a string of facilities, differing in degree, according to the accident of a local contest or the nice balance of a fraction. I attach very little value to any of these facilities, and I am not prepared to waste any words in discussing the precise scope which they would cover. We are to have ordinary facilities, special facilities, extended facilities, depending upon the balance of a popular election, and the variation of a fraction. To all these I can only say that the man who has most practical experience of a school will attach least importance to them. It is at the door of a school or in the choice of a teacher that the parent can alone exercise his right of selection. I know of no case in any country where these facilities have served as a solution for any length of time or upon any large scale. I wish to point out only one very practical difficulty. Suppose you have a school of 700, you will require the services of some twenty teachers. Are these to be duplicated for a single hour or portion of hour in a day? How is it possible that you are to provide for this purpose twenty or twenty-five men to come in during an hour or a part of it who are not to be permitted to take part in the rest of the teaching of the school? What is this scheme to carry out? We are told it is to carry out what is the object of this legislation: uniformity of public control. Those words were often used without qualification, but I observed that the Chancellor of the Duchy was careful to qualify the phrase by saying uniformity of public control over expenditure. By what mandate? I am prepared to admit that the nation desired, and rightly desired, public control commensurate with public assistance, but not further. What is this great idea of uniformity which is sought here? Monotony of type is not an object in itself. It is contrary to all our national instincts, it checks wholesome rivalry and wholesome variety. Do you desire to introduce some foreign model like that of Germany, where the children are turned out on a uniform type and where the work of the schools is under a single official? Such a system is not in accordance with the genius of our race to foster and preserve and not to check the variety in type of our schools. It is no educational advantage. It tends to produce dull and mechanical routine, intellectually and morally pernicious. Try such a system in Scotland or in Ireland, and you will find such a response as will make any Government think twice before it continues the experiment.

Is justice different when it passes between or crosses the Irish Channel? [An HON. MEMBER: Yes] The hon. Member has a more territorial idea of justice than I can subscribe to. What is to be the type of this uniformity you are going to establish? You are to exact a religious uniformity, I care not whether you call it a new or an old uniformity, to be prescribed by the State or by the local authority. It is to be a uniformity apparently in which all subjects as to which different opinions may prevail are to be tabooed. Religion is not the only subject. History, literature, political economy, even the physical sciences are involved. There is to be one type of religion with the teacher for high-priest, yet free to refuse the function and in any case without credentials of his fitness to perform it.

It is said that there is another mandate: that there shall be no tests for teachers. But there is none such now, under any Education Act, except such test as must last, as long as you leave freedom to any body of managers. As to this the right hon. Gentleman is in a dilemma. Either his concession to the four-fifths schools is a worthless sham, or the local authority must take the creed of a teacher into consideration, and thereby establish a test just as it exists now. And who is to define this uniform religion? We are told by Dr. Clifford, I think, that it is a religion which has no adherents and which no one professes. And in no part of his speech was the right hon. Gentleman so violent as when he repudiated any idea that such a religion expressed the views of the Nonconformists. If the right hon. Gentleman was looking for a short title to his Bill I would suggest to him one of two. The short title of the Bill might be "An Act to require that the religion of nobody shall be taught by anybody," or else "An Act to provide that nobody shall teach anybody's religion. "Is this uniform religion to be defined by an annual code, and year by year shorn of some of its essentials? What is a formulary distinctive of any sect? Is it distinctive of one sect? There is no such formulary. Or is it one not received by all sects? Then any new schism may to-morrow whittle away one of the branches of your fundamental Christianity.

But this scheme is not only fundamentally wrong in principle: it is educationally pernicious. In all subjects we have of late insisted that the teacher shall adduce proof of his fitness to teach them with that knowledge and conviction which beget energy and enthusiasm. Is religion to be the one exception? We have widened the conception of education and treated it not merely as the acquiring of a few intellectual aptitudes, and some facility in reading, writing and arithmetic, but as the building up of the character. Is the supreme sanction of moral conduct to be attained by eliminating from the training that which most of us believe to be the strongest element of education? Where, after all, does the parent come in? The right hon. Gentleman told us the other night that he hated the phrase "children of the State" and forced his repudiation by a simile in which he did not spare the blushes of the mace on the table, but is he not here assuming for the State what is the parent's most solemn function? Even to the parent of the child sent as a punitive measure to the industrial school, you give a freedom of choice in the selection of a denominational school, which you deny to thrifty responsible and industrious parents. What has such a schema led to elsewhere? In America all tradition has contracted religious teaching and with what result? It has been gradually lessened till in some States even the reading of the Bible is prohibited, vast numbers are educated in private schools, and 1,500,000 children are educated in the parochial schools without grant and without supervision. The question is giving serious consideration to those best fitted to judge the position of American education. President Murray Butler of Columbia University tells us that one side of education, its religious side, is neglected, and that they are face to face with the alternative of giving grants to parochial or voluntary schools, or of checking the sphere of the public schools, and instituting a new organisation for religious teaching. Do you wish to allow a whole mass of education to pass out of public supervision? Is such a scheme in accordance with our past history, full as it is with great names of the heroes of Church and of Dissent, of Catholics and of Protestant? Is our literature the product of one religious spirit only? I would appeal to the different sections of the House, whether this meagre fare is that upon which their great traditions have been nurtured. No, Sir, the Bill is wrong educationally, wrong in its scornful treatment of conscientious belief, wrong most of all in its cramping uniformity, and in its restriction or constitutional and parental freedom. The right hon. Gentleman quoted from that prolific fountain head of quotation "The Book of Proverbs," those mystic words: "Where there is no vision the people perish." Those familiar words haunt our thoughts as the expression of the great truth that to religion we owe that stirring of the imagination, that quickening of intellectual life which is one of its inestimable benefits. But for millions of our fellowmen pressed by the ills of life, burdened by physical and moral pain, saddened by misfortune and bereavement for whom life has little to offer, it holds out a greater gain in a definite creed, opening wider hopes and showing a sunshine behind the dark clouds of life. Do not, I beseech you, banish these hopes by restricting the freedom of their creed. This scheme may give to you the freedom you desire, but do not seek to remind us that there may be times When a factions bund agree To call it freedom when themselves are free. Leave the school free as a nurturing place of character, as an influence of the widest intellectual scope, inculcating the best sanction to moral conduct, free to steer its course True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home. You are now in the heyday of your power, the masters of many legions which may enable you for the moment to overcome our opposition. But time and the spirit of the nation are with us, and far beyond these walls in many a humble home, in many a lonely village, in the great centres of population gathering in their vast assemblies, opinion is crystalising against you. These forces will have their reprisals, and they will come in other sort and with greater dignity than are seen in the petty vindictiveness of this cramping, this ungenerous, this illiberal Bill.

* MR. BELLOC (Salford, S.)

I only address the House because, after the speech of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, I desire to express the view held by the English liberal Catholic body. No one will deny the importance of that view. The House must remember that we are a very large body numerically. We are as large numerically as Liverpool and Manchester combined, and larger than Birmingham and its surrounding group of lesser towns. Though it is true that probably the main part of that body is Irish in origin, and therefore to some extent attached to the Irish Party for its defence, yet it must also be remembered that it exists in England, and that it returns to Parliament Members, nearly always Liberal, who are pledged usually to the Irish voters, and always to the Catholic voters of their Division to retain if possible the present privileges of the Catholic schools. The hon. Member for Louth made use of the word "moderate," and I have also heard the word "compromise" mentioned as regards the Catholic schools. I cannot too emphatically point out that those two words are absolutely meaningless when the House of Commons is dealing with Catholic faith. The House may tyranni- cally insist on their having less, but English Catholics cannot be content with less for their Catholic children than Catholic schools with Catholic teachers teaching the Catholic religion, and impressing the children all the time. Though I cannot go into the whole "why" of that demand, I can give you a glimpse of it. I desire the House to remember the history of the religious body to which I belong. There is no machinery for teaching history properly in the Universities, and still less in the great public schools of this country which are attended by the wealthy; if there were, no educated Englishman would be ignorant of the fact that in the history of religious persecution since Diocletian nothing can compare with the persecution of the Catholic people of this country by the wealthy and official classes. It has not been a popular persecution, but a cold, deliberate, and bloody persecution on the part of the men who got hold of the land of the country after the dissolution of the monasteries. Can you wonder if, after two centuries of such suffering, we emerged a wholly distinct and highly homogeneous body? Right or wrong, all the rest of the country stands as a body of English Protestants unless I except the small body of the Jews. The hon. Member for Louth asked why, if we allow our members to go to the Universities, we will not allow thorn to go to public schools which are Protestant in purpose. I can answer him, for I have been to one of these Universities. I love my college, though I know it to be thoroughly Protestant. I can toll the hon. Member why I can so accept it. It is because the effect of University teaching is vastly different from the effect of school teaching. The former is critical and falls upon a mature mind; the latter is formative and moulds a mind yet plastic. I never knew any Catholic who went to Oxford and was in any way influenced by the dominant doctrine of the place. But a little child must accept what it is told, and that which it is told finds a permanent hold. If the Catholics are making what seems to be a violent claim, it appears to me we may yet find a way by which without a breach of any Liberal principle, Catholic schools may yet be saved. It is true, not only of myself, but of every Catholic in England, that the preservation of the Catholic schools is far and away the first of the political controversies in which he may be concerned. I should not hesitate for a moment if I found it impossible satisfactorily to represent my constituency and yet to stand as I do for my religion, as to what course I should take. A political career is nothing to us compared with our religion; nor is wealth. It would be an easy matter, as a mere mechanical contrivance, to make the Catholic body a separate body with a particular privilege; but that solution as an English Liberal I reject. Catholics must have their rights on some general principle, and that principle is the right of the parent to have his child instructed, immersed in the religion for the glory and defence of which he brought that child into the world. The Catholics feel that they are in a sense exiles in this country, misunderstood both in regard to their vices and their virtues; and so long as they retain that feeling they demand the right of maintaining the things for which they have struggled so long and so bitterly. The right of the parent in these conditions is inherent. I agree, however, with the view that for the vast majority of Protestant parents in this country the Bill is sufficient, and provides that children shall be brought up in the religion to which their parents are attached. On that account I accept the Bill, and will vote for the Second Reading. There are I know strong arguments against our claim. There is the argument that if you feel this desire for an abnormal system, then you must pay for it. That argument would be sound if you were not asking us to pay for your system. If you could devise a purely neutral and secular system, then you could logically say, "We do not ask you to pay for our morals or our philosophy, neither should we pay for yours;" but when you ask us to endow the opinions of the vast majority of the people of this country, so long as we are a minority we can stand up and say, "as we pay, so we must receive." There is a last and a powerful argument against us which is this. If all sects demanded such rights those rights could not be given, because the complexity would be too great and the whole thing would be impossible. But this argument ignores the practical conditions of the problem. There is no great multiplicity of religions: there are not twenty or thirty different kinds of Englishmen. Upon this question there is a vast mass of solid opinion, and even the man in the street will readily describe to you his views, which will be found to be the same as the principles which have been embodied in this Bill. There are amongst you, in fact, only two sects who really differ from you, namely, the Jews and the Catholics, and practically these are the only two you have to consider. I do not want to wound the susceptibilities of any one. I know that here and there are groups of Protestant parents who demand a highly definite dogmatic teaching. What about such parents? I say if you can find them and get them together; if you can get four-fifths of such parents to demand and urge the teaching of a particular creed, to say what that creed is, and what kind of teacher they want, then there will be no difficulty about the matter. I will give an example Perhaps the Greek Church in Salford or Manchester might desire a particular teaching, and they might choose a particular teacher. But, for the rest, I do not think, with the exceptions I have indicated, that any sect will refuse to accept the simple Bible teaching. Now what is the practical suggestion which I have to make? I am speaking, not only of the Catholic body, but also for the great bulk of those who voted at the last election, when I say that a single school area should, in the future, be neutral even if the school has been Catholic. You have no right to teach even a small minority something which they do not believe in. I agree that wherever you have four fifths, by whatever machinery you give, demanding a particular definite teaching there they should have it. It is also equally important that the teacher should be nominated or suggested by the body which represents the views of the parents, but it is essential that the public authority should have the right to say, "We will not have this or that teacher and you must suggest another," until a suitable person is selected, always, of course, with an appeal to the Education Board. I believe that the English people in local administration are as just as and perhaps more just than the people of any other country, but there are necessarily a few exceptions, and they are quite enough to light a flame which is sure to be felt throughout the whole of our corporate body. Therefore we must have an appeal to the Education Department which is something central and far removed, and which we can trust better than the momentary fads and bigotry of a local body. Finally there is our claim to have now schools recognised. It is intended by Clause 5 to give minorities this right. The simplest way would be to establish proof that the school is required by educating the minimum number of children and then the public will take over the responsibility. One thing is certain. We have determined that we are not going back to the government of the stockjobbing or the form of government which has mis-governed Ireland. I appeal to the Government to permit us to contiuue along the lines I have indicated by some such concessions as I have outlined. I will conclude by saying that for the general purposes of education and its general principles I doubt whether any man who knows the English people and the characteristics of the poor artisan who sends his child to school can sincerely declare that this Bill does not meet the wishes and general opinions of the vast majority of Englishmen.

* MR. J. RAMSAY MACDONALD (Leicester)

I hope the House will allow me to examine the Bill from a somewhat different point of view from the speakers who have preceded me. I speak for no religious sect nor for any anti-religious sect. I have not even the advantage of speaking for a particular Party, because in my quarter of the House, keenly interested as we are in all educational problems, we are bound to consider the Bill as being, to a very small extent, an Education Bill, and, to a very large extent, a sectarian Bill. That being the case the Labour Party is not unanimous about it, although a decided majority of the Party view with sympathy the observations and the criticisms I am about to make on the measure. I regret that no provision has been made for a national system of training colleges for teachers. I regret that no attempt, or at least a very ineffective attempt, has been made to restore democratic control over education. There are two pre-eminent points which characterise this Bill. The first is that it contains a genuine attempt to bring the fabric of the schools under popular control. The second point is that it makes an effort to abolish tests for teachers. Upon these grounds and these alone we are prepared to say that the Bill ought to go to Committee. We are not prepared to say that the provisions under either or both of these heads are sufficient for our purpose, or that they are sufficiently clearly stated, but they will enable very drastic Amendments to be made in Committee, and consequently we propose to vote for the Second Reading of the Bill. The position from which I venture to criticise the Bill is that of secular education. As certain protests have been made in the House to-day against what has been called hitting below the belt, may I also enter my protest against various processes of hitting below the belt. Since the First Reading of the Bill those who are in favour of the teaching of secular subjects have been characterised as secularists. Certain bishops have been telling us that those who are in favour of secular education alone in the public schools are in favour of secularism, that is, the system of philosophy known as secularism. I deny that secular education and secularism are one and the same thing. I deny that secularists only stand up in this House and outside the House in favour of secular instruction. As a matter of fact I shall offer some observations to show that those who are supporting the Bill are much more, in practice at any rate, although not in theory, in favour of secularism than we who are in favour of the teaching of secular subjects only. It is a curious fact, of which both sides of the Houss well know the significance, that every Labour movement, from the north pole to the south, and from the rising to the setting sun, is in favour of a secular system of public schools. In no country in the world, whether Catholic or Protestant, and under no form of government whatever, do we find an organised Labour Party in favour of denominational or undenominational education. Why? I venture to say that the chief reason is that those who belong to the Labour Party send their children to these schools. I am amazed at certain right hon. and hon. Gentlemen rising here and taking such a keen interest in the religious education of the children. What proportion of the bishops, and what proportion of the Members of this House who have been taking part in the debate, are going to send their children to the schools we are discussing? If they would allow us to settle the education that is to be presented to our own children, and for which we are going to make ourselves responsible, there would be less of the sectarian spirit which unfortunately is going to mark the discussion of this Bill. Moreover, the position which we take now, and which we will take throughout the discussion of this Bill, is the position always taken by the leading Nonconformists, who have been the most eloquent, the most earnest, and the most reputable champions of the policy of confining public education to secular subjects. Men whose names are held in reverence m every community holding Nonconformist creeds saw, every time that an educational crisis such as this occurred, that the one security of educational peace, and that the one hope of uniting the country, was to say that, so far as the public schools of the State are concerned, religious instrucsion so-called ought to be kept out, because, except on that basis, there could be no peace, no settlement, and no finality whatever. Unfortunately, from the very beginning of the organised system of elementary education for the children of the working classes we have had this sectarian strife. The State has from time to time honestly and conscientiously done its best to bring peace between the warring sects in this matter. Any one acquainted with the history of elementary education in this country during the last hundred years is aware that it has been one long, bitter, heartrending series of attempts to advance the frontier of education in opposition to warring sectarianism, and unfortunately the attempts have been too often defeated by that warring. Reference has been made to the debates of 1870, when Mr. Richard, the predecessor of my hon. friend for Merthyr Tydvil, moved an Amendment to the Bill of that year to the effect that only secular education should be provided in the schools to be established by the Bill. I regret to say that of the sixty men who went into the Lobby that night in support of Mr. Richard, so far as I can make out—;and I have refreshed my memory as recently as to-day—;only two survive as Members of this House. Fortunately, and may I hope significantly, the present Prime Minister was one of those who voted for secular education in 1870. May I remind those who have still the idea lurking in their minds that secular education is merely secularism of some words used by Mr. Gladstone when dealing with, the same arguments—;I can hardly call them arguments, but with the same stick as has been used to-day to beat those who are in favour of secular education? Mr. Gladstone said he was satisfied that support of the Amendment was compatible with zeal and respect for religion. That is the position of a very considerable number of us on the present occasion.

What is the position to-day? The source of this Bill was the controversy of recent years. We had in 1902 a Bill introduced by the late Government. It was a Bill which undoubtedly effected some excellent reforms, and in many respects it did work which ought to have been done years before. But part of the Bill gave rise to religious controversy, and we have had the old story, the old trouble, the old difficulty. Part of the Bill placed the Church of England in relation to other denominations on an unfair footing. The result was the passive resistance movement. The Government propose to put it right by simple Bible teaching. What is this House asked to do? I hope that the House will ask itself honestly in the light of experience of the last century—;is this Bill going to establish peace? The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy finished his speech by appealing for peace. Appeals for peace are excellent, and I must remark that in the present state of the controversy they do indicate a certain measure of Christianity, but appeals for peace are not enough, for, after all, you have to state the conditions of peace. Unless you state the conditions and unless your appeals for peace are based upon careful inquiry into all the conditions which are honestly possible your appeals will have no influence on the controversy before us. I feel perfectly certain, and especially after the impressive speech of my hon. friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, that there can be no compromise. You cannot compromise with those speeches. There is no use in asking the hon. Gentleman to sit down at a table with the hon. Member for Louth and his friends, and to lay their heads together with those holding other views, in order to discover some common ground which would satisfy them both in regard to the establishment of a public system of religious instruction in this country. I say that the very idea is futile, and it can be disposed of right away. My hon. friend the Member for South Salford stated categorically, and it struck me as being as impressive as the statement of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division, that there can be no compromse between the representatives of the various religious organisations. These declarations have been made even at this early period in the discussion of the Bill before the House Now then, what are we going to do? There are two points that we e to be settled by the recent election. We are told that the electors of the country have given tot the Government a mandate to establish public control, and to abolish sectarian tests for teachers. The first question is how far this Bill carries out that mandate given by the country. It proposes to establish undenominational Bible teaching. Is that carrying out the mandate? It is all very well for certain Members of the House who hold my own religious opinions to come and make speeches on the ground that we are right, and that every other body is wrong. They say that Bible reading is not sectarian. I agree with them. This House is in the position of a Court of Justice. We are not elected as a General Assembly of Divines, or as a Convocation, or as a Committee for the revision of Articles of Union, or to discuss certain common grounds for such a revision. We are here for a purpose of taking an objective view of the religious views of the electors. We are here for the purpose of considering what is the mind of the people as a whole, and then of drafting a Bill which will bring us educational peace, so far as sectarian rivalry is concerned. It has been said honestly and truly by two hon. Members in debate, and with more bitterness by speakers outside, not only of the Roman Catholic religion, but of the English Catholic religion, that simple reading of the Bible without comment is denominational teaching. It is not for us to argue or to dispute that point, but to inquire into the facts of the case, and decide as to the effects of public control. But accepting the statement, the question is, how will the Bill bring peace? It simply gives ground for a more aggravated form of passive resistance than the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition by his Bill of 1902 gave to Nonconformists. [MINISTERIAL cries of "No, no."] How does public control come in, in accordance with Clause 4? Clause 4 is either a real thing, with substance in it, or it is not. If it is put in merely to draw in those who disagree with the Bill in order to induce them to trust to the tender mercies of the local authority, then Clause 4 would be better out of the Bill. If Clause 4 is a genuine attempt to meet the opposition of Roman Catholics and English Catholics, then you are going to supply school room with public money to be used for denominational teaching, and you must appoint masters and teachers to give that teaching with the atmosphere of their creed. And whether you like it or not, and whether the local authorities like it or not, you are bound to appoint to these schools managers as well as teachers who will reflect that atmosphere. No sooner will Clause 4 begin to be operative than you will discover that you are bound to sacrifice some of the pledges of public control which were made at the general election and repeated in this House.

Moreover, we are told that there are to be no tests imposed on teachers. But again assume that Clause 4 is genuine, does any hon. Member who has had experience of these schools, as I have had, really believe in his heart of hearts that these schools are to be accepted by Roman Catholics, or English Catholics, or by Jews unless the headmaster is in sympathy with the atmosphere of the schools? You are bound to create under Clause 4 the system of denominational education in all its fulness which we have experienced during the last four years, subsidised and financed by public authorities out of public funds, and controlled by the body of managers such as those which exist at the present moment in non-provided schools. It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to say that he is not going to compel teachers to teach the Bible. You may put that down on paper, but in practice it will not work out Those who have had a large acquaintance with the management of schools know that although very many people might refuse to give Bible teaching, they cannot possibly afford to do it. Their heart is not in it, and they regard it as a mere mechanical operation. If the teaching of the Bible in the schools is to be a guarantee of religious instruction inside or outside the schools, you are bound to face the conclusion that a man or woman ought to believe that which he or she teaches, if it is to have any regenerating effect on the children. You must remember that the general effect of teaching the Bible is to make it a purely formal matter, and I can say that, having had the benefit of a Scotch education. We were told all about the Kings of Israel and the succession of the prophets, and when we studied the life of Paul we were told only of the number of places he visited, and the number of churches he had founded. I think that the Bible teaching was dealt with in a much better way than that in the board schools in this country. I have been, however, much struck with the fact that, though I have consulted several most competent and experienced teachers whose advice I value very highly, no one has been in favour of retaining the Bible as a text book in the school he controlled. ["Oh, oh."]

What is going to happen as the result of this Bill? The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has told us that there has been no strife; but as a matter of fact in the old school board days the majority of the elections were always fought between Churchmen, Nonconformists, and Secularists. Even in the election of Education Committees since 1902, as was predicted, there has been a great amount of religious strife, and I believe that under this Bill there will be a violent eruption of religious strife. You cannot possibly get out of that. You are now to have the local municipal authorities charged with the power of discriminating between sect and sect; and they are, therefore to be brought into closer touch with warring sectarian organisations. I feel perfectly certain that before twelve months are over in a great many places in this country one of the chief questions before the electors will be questions which divide Church and Chapel. Moreover, denominational education is going to be continued under this Bill, retaining its foothold as in the past, and yet it is to be, to a certain extent, punished for remaining denominational education. The Government, and the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Education will not always be in power; the time will come when the present majority in the House will be upset; and in the meantime the denominationalists are pledged to go on with their agitation. The result will be that when the majority of the House is changed once more there will be re-created a complete denominational system, and there will be a rekindling of passive resistance. But there is an important educational side to all this. The real question at the present time at issue in regard to moral instruction is whether the present form or practice of religious instruction is a fruitful form of instruction. If hon. Members who are in favour of this Bill can prove that it is, then so far as we are concerned any opposition we have to offer to the Bill will be withdrawn. But is it so? I venture to say that if you examine the moral results of the teaching in those schools where the Bible is used as a text book, and the results in these where it is not so used, you will find it very difficult to draw any line of distinction between denominational schools on the one hand as forming a public moral factor and provided schools on the other, and, where schools do not use the Bible as a text book, you will find it difficult to draw a line between them and those districts where the schools do use the Bible with or without comment. Will the Government give us the facts of the case? Will they tell us the value of the simple reading of the Bible in our public schools? What is the atmosphere which it creates in our public schools as part and parcel of their curriculum? Will they tell us upon what they base the statement that it is of character-making advantage? The hon. Member who has just sat down quoted to us a statement by Professor Butler who, sharing the view of every educationalist in this country deplored the fact that the American schools, in the same way as the English schools, have somehow failed in character building. The hon. Member has suggested that if you place the Bible in the schools it will solve the problem, but will it? In a report which has just been placed in the hands of the House by one of His Majesty's inspectors for the West Division of Scotland it is stated—; If the all-important end of education is a moral one, I am decidedly of opinion that some direct and definite moral instruction should be introduced at the supplementary course stage, and that this instruction should be given by the headmaster and the headmistress of the school. Many pupils come into collision with the criminal law after they leave school through sheer ignorance of the dangers that beset their path and the temptations that lie in their way. I believe that the formation of right ideas and the rational appreciation of them are highly important, also more especially just before a pupil is launched on the world to tight and fend for himself. There is the comment made by one of the most competent inspectors of the Scottish schools where the Bible is taught, and precisely the same language, or at any rate the same idea, is expressed by Dr. Butler with regard to the American schools. What happens in schools where the Bible is used? At 9 o'clock the school assembles, the teacher opens a book which happens to be the Bible. He reads in a great many cases verses out of it. He then asks his pupils to sing a hymn. The book is then closed. He opens a geography or history book and the lessons go on in the ordinary way. ["Oh!"] I am talking about the condition of things prevailing in Scotland, where we have been told by an hon. Member of this side of the House, who ought to know, considering his intimate connection with the Education question in Scotland the best conditions in regard to Bible reading prevail. All I can say is, that I have been a teacher in Scotland, and I know what happened in the schools with which I was connected, and what I say is perfectly true of non-provided schools also. I assert that that accurately describes the process of Bible instruction in our public schools as a matter of fact. How can we expect anything else, or wonder at the failure of Bible teaching to produce character, used as it is as an arithmetic book or book of geography. The English schools, as far as I can gather, are pretty much in: the same position. The Bible is used as a text book for the purpose of telling some story or other to children in precisely the same way that the geography or arithmetic book is used, and the result is shown in the extract which I have read to the House from one of the ablest Scottish inspectors. The Secretary of State for India, in a book which is one of the few religious books which the nineteenth century produced, has laid his finger upon the real source of the difficulty. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose wrote in that book "On Compromise" the following sentences—; Let a youth be trained in simple and straight-forward recognition of the truth that we can know, and can conjecture nothing with any assurance as to the ultimate mysteries of things. Let his imagination and his sense of awe be fed from those springs, which are none the less bounteous because they flow in natural rather than supernatural channels. Let him be taught the historic place and source of the religions which he is not bound to accept unless the evidence for their authority by-and-by brings him to another mind. A boy or girl trained in this way has an infinitely better chance of growing up with the true spirit and leanings of religion implanted in the character than it they had been educated in formulae which they could not understand, by people who do not believe them. I hope we may use these words with reverence and without altogether committing ourselves to the general position which the right hon. Gentleman took up in that book. The effect of all this has been that we have succeeded wonderfully well in secularising the Bible without moralising education, and it is because I am opposed to that system being carried out upon moral and ethical grounds I take up the position I do. My final point is that we have heard a great deal about the rights of parents. I deny that those rights exist. [Cries of "Oh."] Let us see what hon. Members who expressed their dissent mean. They do not merely mean that a parent has a right to teach his child his religion; if they meant that it might be an arguable proposition. But that is not what they mean. They mean that a parent has a right to demand that the State shall educate his children in his religion. That is a totally different proposal. Theoretically a parent has no right to say the State shall educate his child or children in his religious belief, because the moment he establishes or tries to establish that right, he comes counter to the rights of other citizens who refuse to pay rates or taxes for the propagation of creeds which they do not hold or approve of. The right of the citizen, therefore, comes into opposition at once with the assumed right of the parent and it is impossible to enforce the assumed right. Moreover, the child has a right against its parent. The child has a perfect right to go to its parent or to get some one else to go to the parent and say that the State is in certain respects its guardian. [Cries of "Oh."] If that is not so, why have we got our child labour laws? The child has a right to go to the State and ask the State to protect its mind so that its mind will be prepared and nurtured in the best possible way to meet honestly and without fear those great problems which we all have to attempt to solve. That right, I imagine, is as inviolable, from the point of view of the child, as the assumed right of the parent to bring up the child in those assumed religious dogmas which he has chosen as satisfactory. I know that that doctrine is extremely unpopular and will give rise to great prejudice. I know there is no doctrine which is surrounded with more prejudice than that, or which can be approached with more unreasoning doubt, but notwithstanding, I say, by your industrial legislation, you are beginning to recognise the fact, and sooner or later in your religious and moral education also you will have to recognise it.

There are, then, two objections to this Bill, first, that it is a measure which is not going to bring peace. It is going to hand over to the next generation every problem in denominational education which the last generation handed over to us. The second objection is that you are not going to advance the quality of our moral instruction or make any contribution to the problem of the building up of character which is the great practical problem of our schools. If, however, you make up your minds that the education given in our schools from public money during school hours and by Civil Servants must be in secular subjects only, you will be laying the foundation of peace, and your appeal to peace will be a real appeal, backed by a Bill which lays the foundation of that peace. Members of this House, when another Education Bill is before it, will go back to the debates of 1906 as we have been going back to the debates of 1870. They will read the speeches delivered on this Bill for the purpose of trying to find out what our minds were, and they will discover that the problem they have to face then is the problem we have to face now, and they will deplore the fact that the legislature of to-day threw the difficulty upon them, and left the solution of this question to another generation. They will take up our speeches where we leave off, and the divisions which are going to take place upon this measure will surely be repeated thirty years hence. The State is a secular organisation, and it ought to say to the Church and the family:—;"It is your responsibility to teach religion to the children—;to teach that which is of no value unless it touches the heart with a strange regenerative influence." For this reason I deplore the weakness of the Bill, though for the reasons I have stated I propose to vote for the Second Reading.

* DR. MACNAMARA

I cannot take up the speech of my hon. friend where he leaves off, because I have first to reply to the challenge of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover, who moved the rejection of the Bill to-day. But I do venture to say that his view of how the Bible is taught in the provided schools of this country is entirely distorted. The right hon. Gentleman for Dover, in moving the rejection of this Bill, said that the State had never departed from its policy of neutrality in educational matters. I interrupted and said it had in 1902. The right hon. Gentleman challenged me to prove it, and I venture therefore, to give three small points in proof of my contention, and in justification of my interruption. The first of these points is that the Act of 1902 —;the Act of the Leader of the Opposition —;put the denominational schools upon the rates of the locality, of which I do not complain, and which I think was a right thing to do, and which I think was a great reform, but it avoided the direct consequence of popular control, which is that the moment you place public education on public funds, you must follow that up by giving full public control. The right hon. Gentleman's Act got over that difficulty in this way. It gave a non-provided school six managers, of whom the public had two and the trustees four.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

No.

* DR. MACNAMARA

Really the right hon. Gentleman seems to have forgotten his Act very soon; under the Act of 1902, the trustees; have four managers, and the public two. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover has a very fantastic view of what the neutrality of the State is. Again, at the present moment there are over 30,000 head teacherships in this country which are salaried out of public funds. As to 18,000 of those head teacherships, no Nonconformist can, under any circumstances, apply for the post of head teacher, and in 16,220 nobody can get the position who is not a member of the Church of England. That again, I think, is a fantastic notion of neutrality. In the third place, to go no further, although I could multiply these illustrations, there are 7,087 places open to King's scholars in the residential training colleges, but in 4,309 of those places, no matter how successful the King's scholar had been, he would not be admitted unless he changed his religion and became a member of the Church of England. Take my own case, not that I want to put it forward in any way, but it happens to be a case in point. In the year 1879 I obtained a King's Scholarship entitling me to a place in one of these residential colleges. There was one next door to me in Exeter, and I should have been very high indeed in the Exeter list, but I did not care to become a member of the Church of England; so I had to come to London and bear the expense, while others far below me on the Government Ist went into that institution. That is a strange and fantastic notion of neutrality. The right hon. Gentleman ought to know that the electors sent us here to redress the departure from neutrality set up by the Act of 1902.

MR. WYNDHAM

I do not wish to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he seems to be courting interruption from me. I merely wish to say that I cannot reply to him now, but I reserve my opinion and will deal with this at a later stage of the Bill.

* DR. MACNAMARA

The electors sent us here to redress the departure from neutrality set up by the Act of 1902, and if the right hon. Gentleman does not know that, the electoral field is strewn with the stricken forms of his ex-colleagues who do know it. A conspicuous fact has come to light since this Bill was read a first time. It is now unanimously conceded that public control must follow the placing of the schools upon the rates. My view is that this general admission is a very great step along the road of educational reform. It is less than four years ago that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition reserved four seats out of six on the Board of Management to the trustees and gave two to the public. When the Bill was in Committee the hon. Member for East Mayo asked for a slight modification of that.

MR DILLON (Mayo, E.)

And I was denounced on all sides for so doing.

* DR. MACNAMARA

The hon. Member for East Mayo said—;"Do not give four seats to the trustees, give two to the denominationalists, two to the parents and two to the local authority." He was, as he truly says, denounced for that and now the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover gets up full of zeal for the parents.

But leaving that, Sir, the discussions upon this question during the past month show that the opposition to this Bill falls into two lines. First, it takes the line that the transfer of the denominational schools to the authority is confiscation. [Cries of "Hear, hear.] Hon. Members assent to that. That is not said by the right hon. Member for Dover, but he gave us some very florid paraphrases upon it. I should like to examine at close quarters this argument. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover has said that the denominational buildings which, it is alleged, are to be confiscated under the Bill, are worth £32,000,000 and that the money has been subscribed because of religious zeal.

MR. WYNDHAM

The hon. Gentleman must do justice to my fairness. I said it was not all so subscribed, and that it was idle to argue that some of this sum was not subscribed for other reasons.

* DR. MACNAMARA

It is of course notorious that much of this money has been contributed for other reasons—;to keep out the higher charge of a School Board. I do not think the directors of the London and North-Western Railway Company contribute to the schools at Crewe for love of the Church Catechism. I do not think the directors of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company contribute to the voluntary schools at Dover because they want specific Church teaching. No, they want the thing on the cheap—;and many a good Nonconformist has joined them in it.

Many a staunch Nonconformist has swallowed any amount of Church Catechism to be let off lightly in the local charge. But supposing the money was all subscribed for reasons of religious zeal. The Primate said, in a letter to Churchmen on December 12th, 1903, that the value of the buildings, which the right hon. Gentleman opposite has put at £32,000,000, was £22,000,000. The discrepancy shows the inflamed state of mind of reckless opponents of the Bill. Dr. Moorhouse, the late Bishop of Manchester, stated in the House of Lords on December 10th, 1902, that the rental of the denominational buildings was worth £715,000 a year. The Government sets aside £1,000,000, and yet hon. Gentlemen opposite talk of confiscation! There is not a Bishop on the Episcopal Bench who would not be ready to be confiscated as often as you like at the same price. But that is not all. The public authority already bears the charge for wear and tear in the non-provided schools. Under the Bill they are to bear the structural alterations of the fabric. Dr. Moorhouse told the House of Lords, on the same occasion, that structural alterations in their buildings cost the Church of England £700,000 a year. The Government are handing over £1,000,000 yearly for what is estimated at an annual value of £715,000, and, over and above that, they are taking over the structural alterations of the fabric. No wonder the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover calls this a precious Bill. Let me just quote what I understand to be the real facts of the case. The Bishop of Hereford has said—; As regards the Church schools in our own diocese, we should, under this Bill, be better off financially than ever before, if we agreed to let them to the local authority on a repairing lease. We should be freed from all worry or anxiety about improvements or extensions, or any of the recurring requirements of the Board of Education, whilst our clergy would be able to give or to secure for the children systematic instruction in Prayer-book and Catechism as regularly and as fully as they have ever yet done in times past. I think that is a fair estimate of the case. Let me, with great respect, offer a word of warning to the extreme denominationalists who talk about confiscation. I would recommend them to agree with their adversary quickly while he is in the way with them. I certainly think the local authority, if there is much haggling, will say, "Go away. We decline to treat with you. We will build our own schools. We will spread the cost over sixty years. The financial burden will be immediately less, and, in the long run, we will have a building of our own, and, all the time, we shall have complete control of it."

The other main attack on the Bill rages around the eternal religious question. It seems to me there are three courses open to the Government in dealing with this question. They might have said they would dispense denominational teaching all round as part of a State system. I think that is hopelessly impracticable. There are too many denominations, unfortunately. Take a particular instance—;a school at Drury Lane. Under the Industrial Schools Act, which provides that religious instruction is to be on the basis of denominational teaching all round, everything went on at that school very happily for many years. Half the children, roughly, were Roman Catholics. All of a sudden there appeared a Presbyterian child. To my mind the needs of a single Presbyterian have as much claim upon the public as sixty Catholics or forty Protestants. I cannot see how we could meet the opinions of that particular Presbyterian by appointing a permanent teacher solely for him. Therefore, I dismiss that as entirely impracticable, and if it were not impracticable, which it is, it would bitterly accentuate sectarian differences during childhood which might very well be left to a more advanced age. I remember that the Leader of the Opposition once said that he was opposed to segregation in these matters. For these reasons, therefore, I dismiss the first of these three alternatives. The second proposal is that of the hon. Member for Leicester. You might say, "Very well, we cannot dispense purely denominational teaching all round, and we will confine the instruction to purely secular teaching." I admit that that is absolutely logical and fair to the body at large, but it is hopelessly out of touch with the national sentiment. Has the hon. Member for Leicester considered this point? It will commit tens of thousands of the children of our cities to a youth untouched by Christian truths. The Secular Party may emerge well from this controversy because it is already a powerful Party, and very likely will be reinforced by the man in the street who, sick and tired of theological bickering, will adopt it as a policy of despair. It is always the theologian who blocks the way to educational progress, and therefore the man in the street may very well be induced to associate himself with the advanced advocate of secular schools and go in for the abolition of the Bible altogether in the schools. Personally, however, I should oppose that proposal. Then, having dismissed denominationalism as impracticable, having dismissed a system of secular schools as being out of touch with national sentiment, there remains only the system of the State's giving simple Biblical teaching, leaving to outside teachers the task of adding a denominational superstructure. That is the scheme of this Bill. Religious teaching need not be given unless the local authority desire it. It is not a very new feature, for it is the fundamental provision of the Cowper-Temple system as laid down in 1870. Then there is a clause under which no child need attend religious instruction unless its parents desire. That is the by-law of the late Government issued through the Board of Education, and if that makes for secular schools it must not be placed at our door but at the door of the late Board of Education over which the hon. Baronet the Member for Oxford University presided.

* SIR WILLIAMANSON

I must enter a caveat here. The hon. Member is wholly mistaken in his construction of that by-law.

* DR. MACNAMARA

At any rate I know what the practice has been under it. Under that by-law an answer was given the other day showing that a considerable number of local authorities have allowed parents to absent their children during the time of religious instruction. I do not make any complaint of that, but it should not be used as an argument against us for setting up a secular system. For the first time in the history of this country, under this Bill no teacher will be compelled to give religious instruction unless he likes, and that will take away many of those unfortunate aspects of the religious controversy which have been referred to. Clause 7, Sub-section 2, is a real charter of liberty to the teacher, and in my opinion, will do much to improve religious instruction in the schools. In addition to all that, there are wide facilities for specific denominational teaching.

Let me deal for a moment with the opposition to this scheme. This scheme is opposed by the advocates of secular teaching and also by the High Churchmen. The latter contend that simple Bible teaching under State auspices amounts practically to an endowment of Nonconformity. That is a most amazing proposition. It rests upon the curious fallacy that the Bible is exclusively the property of Nonconformists. Although I am only a layman, I confess that I really thought up to the 9th of April and the discussion which ensued that the Bible was the common joint possession of all members of the Christian community. Do Gentlemen opposite realise the effect on the country of this opposition to Bible teaching? The common person is amazed, the unsophisticated layman is disgusted. When I hear great prelates denouncing simple Bible teaching as undermining the Christian faith, I do not know whether he is more amazed at the sublimity of their arrogance or the depth of their profanity. They resist preference being given to the Bible, and they do this conscientiously in the name of Christianity! I will pass no further comment upon this attitude beyond saying that I do not understand their position at all or their point of view. I do not deny that, from a logical point of view, a case may be made out against the preferential treatment of the Bible, which is hopelessly indefensible from the point of view of dry logic and doctrinaire, but it is a system which has got behind it thirty-five years of admirable work. Mr. Forster, in presenting his Bill in 1870, said—; I have the fullest confidence that in the reading and explaining of the Bible, what the children will be taught will be the great truths of Christian life and conduct, which all of us desire they should know, and no effort will be made to cram into their poor little minds theological dogmas which their tender age prevents them understanding. For thirty-five years ministers of all denominations, bishops of the Established Church, even Dr. Knox, and others have sat down together and prepared syllabuses of instruction for the giving of Bible teaching under this system, and that instruction has been given with remarkable devotion and discretion by the teachers. This simple Bible teaching has been taught with the approval of the parents and it has been wholesome to the children. Cardinal Manning once said—; If the Bible is read in the school, and if prayers are read and Christian hymns are sung, I could not honestly or fairly say that that is not a Christian school. Dr. Ryle, when Bishop of Liverpool, said—; I thank God for the Board schools of Liverpool. I said on the First Reading that this Bill is an honest and painstaking effort to solve an almost insoluble problem. I say so now after a careful consideration of the provisions of the measure. I do not think the Bill is perfect, and I recommend to the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education an extremely valuable letter in The Times of last Monday from the Bishop of Ripon, and the reasonable propositions of the Convocations of Canterbury and York. I think it is possible to make modifications in it—;always subject to these vital principles, which cannot be tampered with—;full popular control and no test for teachers—;modifications which might make the future administration of the Bill when it becomes law more acceptable to certain sections. I suggest that Clause 4 should be mandatory on the local authority, and I see no reason for discrimination between Clauses 3 and 4 in this respect. In the second place, I should be inclined to widen the application of Clause 4 to other than urban areas if I were assured that there would be school accommodation within easy reach of every child. Thirdly, it might be worth while to see whether it would be well to associate with the management, say, three representative parents on the occasion of the final selection of teachers. I would call the attention of the President of the Board of Education to Clause 26, which provides for the devolution on the authorities for smaller areas within a county, down to the parish council, of certain functions to be carried out under the Bill. I am aware that questions in relation to the appointment, dismissal, and the salaries of teachers are withheld from the smaller areas. They are still to remain in the hands of the county authority. I think this devolution will have to be watched with extreme care. I cannot contemplate with equanimity such a proposal in connection with the question of the exemption of children from attendance for labour. Apart from these reasons there is the difficulty of rating in a parish on which these functions would devolve. Upon some places you would have to lay three rates—;one for capital in respect of buildings, one in respect of the whole county education rate, and one for the duty devolved on them under Clause 26. My last point is in regard to Clause 7. There I do think the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover was not quite fair, if I may say so. He called attention to Sub-section 4. I admit at once that if a non-provided school is closed what the Bill does under that sub-section is to give the teacher the privilege of contributing for one year to the Government superannuation fund at a time when he has not money to do so. Sub-section 3 does provide that in the case of a transferred school—;and there will be many transferred—;that a teacher must go with his school to the local authority. I hope my right hon. friend will be able to do something more than what is now provided in Section 7, Sub-section 4, for the teacher whose school may be closed. I make these suggestions in no spirit of opposition to the Bill, but because I am impatient of the clogging of the wheels of education in this country. I want to get on. What I desire is that the youth of this country may be so trained that they shall be adequate stewards of the great heritage which will fall into their hands.

LORD CASTLEREAGH (Maidstone)

I would venture to say a few words with regard to this most important, in fact this vital, question of education, and in intruding myself on the attention of hon. Members, I make no apology because I consider that it is incumbent upon anyone who can claim to belong to a section of the Christian Faith to do his utmost to resist a Bill of which the redeeming points are so hard to discover. It must be apparent to all that the Bill introduced by the Minister of Education has not been received with the general satisfaction which the enigmatical utterances of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite at the General Election led us to believe. The storm of indignation and protest which the speech of the right hon. Gentleman has excited in all parts of the country makes it obvious that there must be something radically wrong with the measure as proposed, and that to make it acceptable to the majority of the people, the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues must have regard to those religious instincts which mean so much to the character of a nation, and which it is obvious must be endangered if ever this Bill in its present form should become the law of the land. I approach this subject in no hostile spirit, and in fact, in no Party spirit. I approach it as one who is proud to belong to a denomination, and I ask no more for one denomination than for another: but I do ask that freedom should be accorded to all denominations, and that every child should have the opportunity of acquiring definite religious instruction as a part of its daily education. What is proposed by the Bill we are now discussing? It is proposed to invent, if I may use the expression, a new religion which for its sheer inadequacy will satisfy all sections of the Christian Faith; any further denominational instruction is to be treated as an extra, and so-called facilities are to be given in that respect. If all schools were the property of the State it might be said that this colour-less religious instruction would be the only solution of the problem, as I for one maintain that anything would be preferable to entirely secular education. But it must be borne in mind that the majority of the schools have been built by Church people with the object of imparting definite religious instruction to the children of this country. That education should be a national concern, I feel no one will attempt to deny, and I maintain the Education Act of 1902 undertook this responsibility, and at the same time extended a helping hand to those religious bodies to whom we owe so much for present day education. It is impossible to claim perfection for any new measure, and the Act of 1902 was no exception to the rule. But I maintain that if all sections of the community had combined in the patriotic desire to correct the few minor defects in that Act as regards the necessity for which we are all agreed, that measure would have been handed down to future generations as a measure supplying the educational and religious wants of all sections of the community. I do not wish to convey any impression that I am opposed to Nonconformity. I maintain that the same privileges should be extended to all denominations alike, and it is for this reason that I most strongly oppose a scheme which obviously favours one denomination. It is unfortunate that there are not enough schools in the country to satisfy the needs of all religious sections; but because one denomination is unfortunate in this respect it is a gross injustice that all other denominational schools should be forced to renounce their denominational character. I say "unfortunate" advisedly, because it was equally open to Nonconformists to build schools, but prior to the Act of 1870 they were content to take the advantages which were extended to all alike, and only assorted themselves when called upon to join in contributing to education as a national concern. As regards the views held by the President of the Board of Education, I find that in an article which the right hon. Gentleman published some two years ago in the Independent Review, he declared that there must be a compromise between the Anglicans and the Nonconformists, and he suggested the abolition of the Cowper-Temple Clause, which, he added, was all the Nonconformists had to give. But I have no wish to rake up the prehistoric utterances of the right hon. Gentleman, as I have every reason to believe that those ideas have undergone a very material change. But I would like to show that the right hon. Gentleman held the same views in January last when Minister of Education as he held two years ago, when he was a free and irresponsible Member of the Opposition. Speaking at Bristol on January 12th, the right hon. Gentleman said he was not only desirous that there should be Christian and Bible education in all schools, but he also wished that in all schools there should be facilities given, if they could be arranged on proper terms, whereby denominations should be free to instruct children in those schools in what they believed to be the true religion. I would like to know now what are actually the views of the right hon. Gentleman. He now appears to believe, if one can summarise his views, that the voluntary schools should be handed over without compromise to Dr. Clifford, and I think it can be said with truth that of all the extravagances of the present Government by far the most outrageous is the placing of Dr. Clifford by the present Bill on the rates. I can only imagine that this policy has been urged by the President of the Board of Trade and Dr. Clifford, and adopted as part of their policy by the Government at the demand of their followers. To my mind one of the most dangerous provisions of the Bill is the so-called abolition of tests for teachers, because in the future teachers need not profess any religion whatever; in fact, they may even be atheists if they choose. In every other branch of education no teacher would be allowed to instruct unless he were duly qualified to do so. Religious instruction is the most important part of a child's training, and yet there is to be allowed no safeguard that it is believed in by the teachers who impart it. It will be within the jurisdiction of the local authority to appoint a teacher who very likely has no belief in the religion he is called upon to impart. Moreover, the teacher may even refuse to give any religious instruction whatsoever, and the local authority will have no power to force him to do so, nor can they provide a qualified substitute. Amongst the many extraordinary provisions contained in the Bill the idea of giving Home Rule in Education to Wales must rank as one of the most extraordinary. Anyone who has watched the persecution of Anglican schools in Wales for the last three years—;a persecution never denounced by the President of the Board of Trade—;will realise what is likely to be their future. Let me give one instance. On July 1st and October 1st, 1905, 205 teachers in voluntary schools in Montgomeryshire were without salary. They would not have got it at all, nor would the voluntary school have been provided with coal or light, but for the operation of the Default Act, and the President of the Board of Trade will not deny that that is the case in other counties in Wales.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE, Carnarvon) Boroughs

I deny it, and I ask the noble Lord to name a single other county.

* VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH

I am very glad the right hon. Gentleman can deny it; I spoke of Montgomeryshire because I know the facts I mentioned to be correct. I am one of those who maintain that denominational religious education is absolutely essential to the moral well-being of the individual. The fact that an individual belongs to a community professing one particular form of religion is to my mind a moral assistance, which must have an elevating effect, and I look with the gravest apprehension on a measure which is calculated to undermine this moral influence by the withdrawal of that definite religious form of instruction which has meant so much in the past and which is responsible for our present national integrity. It is asserted that the Church people have no cause to complain, that they will receive a fair rent, and that they may look upon these efforts as a commercial success, for they will receive a good return for their money. Whilst strongly deprecating any infringement of the rights of property, I would venture to point out to those who assert that Church people will be well paid for the sacrifices they have made and the money they have spent in the earnest endeavour to promote that definite religious instruction which they themselves believe to be essential to the well-being of the children of the country, that no remuneration whatever can be adequate when the obvious prospect is that the future generation will grow up with a merely defined sense of the difference between right and wrong, but with no such definite form of religious faith as has always been in the past, and will ever be in the future, the mainstay of every right-thinking individual.

Debate to be resumed to-morrow.