§ Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question [7th May], "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."
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE,) Carnarvon BoroughsBefore I proceed to an examination of the main principles upon which the Bill is founded, I should like to say a few words about a clause in which I am specially concerned, and which has been severely criticised in the course of this debate and by the Leader of the Opposition in the speech which he made last week in the Albert Hall. I mean the clause which establishes a central education authority for Wales. These criticisms are based on a total misapprehension of the real meaning of the clause. Whether that is the fault of the clause or the fault of the critics will appear when we come to discuss the clause. At any rate, it carries out the intention of the Government. I should not refer to this matter of detail wore it not clear that it is to be made to play a great part in the attempt to create prejudice against the Bill. What is the origin of the clause? The Leader of the Opposition seems to assume that it is simply a conspiracy on the part of the Nonconformists of Wales to secure the control of education, to be independent altogether of the Imperial Parliament, and to trample upon the rights of Churchmen. The real fact is 1175 that this clause was the result of a conference on education that was summoned by the Tory corporation of Cardiff. The lord mayor, a strong Churchman and a Conservative candidate, was in the chair. His Motion was a purely educational one. The conference was summoned for the purpose of deciding whether or not there should be an appeal to the Government to set up a national council in Wales for the administration of education—;primary, secondary, and university. To that conference men of all Parties and creeds in Wales were summoned. The four Anglican Bishops were summoned, and three attended. The two Catholic Bishops were summoned, and both were present. Every Conservative candidate for a Welsh seat was summoned, and most of them attended. At this conference, so representative, a Resolution was unanimously passed in favour of asking the Government to set up this central council for the control and direction of education in Wales. Wales is too quiet a country and too loyal a country to attract that public attention which would otherwise be given to its movements. The result is that any one may say anything he likes about Wales, knowing that he is appealing to an audience which is ignorant about the elementary facts of the country. I think it is most unfair that a statesman in the position of the Leader of the Opposition, who ought to know better, who should have a certain sense of responsibility in such a grave matter, should have endeavoured to mislead the country about a thing as to which the simplest inquiries would have shown him that his statements were unfounded. You would imagine from the speech of the Leader of the Opposition that this was an attempt to set up an independent Parliament in Wales.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR (City of London)So far as education is concerned.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEThe right hon. Gentleman is still under that impression. I do not think the Leader of the Opposition has a right to criticise a proposal, at least, until he has read it. The right hon. Gentleman cannot have read the first line if he is still under that misapprehension. There is not the smallest power to legislate on the smallest detail to be vested in this council. The statement of the right hon. Gentleman was grossly unfair and misleading to the 1176 country. Welsh opinion is on the whole unanimously in favour of this Welsh council. There may be differences of detail about it, and I do not mean among the Welsh Members. For instance, with, regard to the question of the unfairness of handing over to a Welsh council the administration of trusts relating to voluntary schools, if there is an Amendment of that sort moved, if the Opposition consider that the guarantees in the clause are not satisfactory in that respect, we shall have no hesitation at all in accepting such an amendment. We realise that it would not be fair after the bitter controversy in Wales to hand over to a body representing the Welsh county councils things that are in controversy at the present moment. If guarantees are required we do not demand that the matter should be left to an Order in Council, but we will accept any Amendment in Committee in order to ensure that nothing of the sort shall occur. The opposition to this clause, however, does not come from Welsh Conservatives or Welsh Churchmen; it comes from the noble Lord who represents Maidstone. [AN HON. MEMBER: At present.] There was not a single Welsh candidate who got up to protest against it; on the contrary, they voted for it. I sincerly trust that the Opposition will not take advantage of the fact that Wales is small, and the number of its members not large, in order to thwart a scheme which all parties in Wales are anxious for in the interests of Welsh education. All we ask for is that we should be able to co-ordinate all branches of education. We have complete control of secondary education, and also of higher education, but primary education is controlled from Whitehall, so far as administration is concerned. It is most important to us that they should all fit in, and for this adequate reason, that Wales is a country where four-fifths of the children in the secondary schools come straight from the primary schools. To talk of the disruption of the Empire because of this proposal is simply part of that gross and futile exaggeration which has gone on about the whole of this Bill. Such talk is an illustration of the barren and stupid leadership which has left the Tory Party without a single representative in Wales. I was very much struck by an observation made by the hon. Member for North Camberwell last night. He said 1177 that the problem was insoluble. Well, I too think it is almost insoluble. The right hon. Gentleman, in his speech at Cambridge, claimed that we should have a logical settlement. How long has he been an advocate of a logical settlement? Was there much logic in the settlement of 1902? It is much easier to be logical in criticism than in action. From no point of view was the settlement of 1902 logical. In one parish you had a State school to which every child was driven, Nonconformist as well as Church child, and the whole management was in the hands of one creed. Everybody contributed, yet Nonconformity was as much a disqualification for the position of teacher as if it was an offence against law or morals. That is not defended now. I have read a good many letters which have been written on this Bill. Most of the writers admit that the solution of 1902, was an unfair one in such parishes. I wish they had spoken out at the time. They were perfectly willing to take advantage of the unfairness, perfectly ready to profit by it. They made no attempt to help us to remove the injustice; the only denominational gentlemen who did so wore the members from Ireland. The hon. Member for East Mayo at the time, at any rate, did recognise the grievance, but from the majority of the supporters of the Bill of 1902, we had not even an admission until now.
§ MR A. J. BALFOURI am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman. I can only say that over and over again I stated ad nauseam in the course of the prolonged debates on the Bill of 1902, that it was not a complete settlement of the question, and that it was a hardship in single-school areas. I did not deny it for a moment, but I said over and over again that there was a corresponding hardship in urban areas. It never occurred to me for one moment to suggest to the House that the single-school area condition was a satisfactory one, and I did provide something in the nature of a remedy when I allowed local authorities to build schools of their own, which they were not allowed to do under the Act of 1870.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEThen the offence of the right hon. Gentleman is worse than I characterised it. He now says that he recognised and admitted the 1178 grievance, but, knowing it, he legislated without making any active provision to meet it. That is an aggravation of the offence. The right hon. Gentleman says that there was a corresponding grievance of Churchmen in urban areas. That grievance was that the Churchman has to support what he calls undenominational religion of which he does not approve. Therefore, because one set of Churchman were getting more than their due in one parish, it was to be met by another set of Churchmen getting less than their due in another. And that is a logical solution. Was the Kenyon-Slaney arrangement a logical one? That is putting two men on a denominational foundation, and of course it is always assumed that the local authorities will select atheists of the rankest kind. What for? To settle the syllabus of religious instruction in the school; and yet in that very school where atheists can settle the syllabus the most religious Nonconformist in the land could not teach the syllabus. And you call that a logical settlement. So much for the logic of that settlement. I do not think the Leader of the Opposition is proud of it. Thereare, I think, four logical settlements. There is, first, the purely secular system. That is a logical settlement. The second is the frankly denominational all round. That, too, is logical. Thirdly, there is the common religious syllabus, which also is logical. But there is a fourth settlement. You may frankly say you cannot have any common religious syllabus between Protestant and Catholic, and that is the settlement you have in Germany, in Quebec, in Holland. It is a recognition that there are fundamental differences you cannot solve—;which are absolutely insoluble. Whether it is just or not, that also would be logical.
If the House will bear with me I will state how the Government have come to the conclusion that the proposal in the Bill is the only solution we can propound under the circumstances, having regard not merely to the logic but, what is stronger than logic, the facts of the situation. Now, take the secular solution. Does any one in this House believe that it would be possible, for any Government to propose a secular system for this country? [A voice, "Yes."] I am perfectly certain the; could not. Even my hon. friends 1179 who believe in secular instruction know perfectly well it could not be carried. Why, take even Birmingham which was the very centre of the agitation for secular instruction in 1870. What happened there? The secularists were beaten there, the right hon. Gentleman was beaten in his own city. If the religion of Mahomet is unacceptable in Mecca, how can you expect it to be received in places where the shrine has fallen into disrepute? You cannot carry the secular system, and I do not argue it. Let us take the frankly denominational system. I admit that here is a suggestion which you have to examine carefully; but it is not altogether the Act of 1902. It is a very different thing. Hon. Members opposite are too fond of assuming that they are defending a logical and just educational denominational system. ["No, no."] Very well, I will not press the point. But it is not the system of 1902. Under the frankly denominational system you are going to set up a denominational system in this country, and it is to be a national system, a denominational system all round. They seem to think that it will mean denominational privileges for Roman Catholics, Jews, Anglicans, and Wesleyans, but not for anybody else. ["No, no."] I am glad to hear that disclaimer. We have had, however, a new doctrine set up about religious instruction—;the doctrine of the right of the parent. It is a perfectly new doctrine, as far as the general controversy is concerned. When was it discovered? Was it discovered before 1902? If so, where is it in the Act of that year?
§ MR. WYNDHAM (Dover)In Clause 9.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEThat is a different thing; that is not the right of the parent, but the right of the sect. I am now discussing the right of the parent, the inalienable right of a parent to demand of the State that it shall bring up his child in his own faith. What happened in 1902? I recollect one or two very useful discussions on the Act of 1902, one initiated by the hon. Member for East Mayo, and the hon. Member for Morley. Both hon. Members wanted the parents' right to be recognised in the denominational schools. The House must not forget that the whole basis of the claim for denominational instruction is not 1180 the right of the denomination, but the right of the parent. How are the denominational syllabuses settled at the present moment? Four foundation managers settle the syllabus for the religious instruction which every child shall receive in the school. Who are the managers? The clergyman, ex officio, the great landlord, probably two great landlords, and the others are probably men of position and substance, who contribute largely to the funds of the school and the parish, but not one of them in all probability sending his child to the school. Observing this, my hon. friend the Member for Morley asked, "What about the right of the parent to choose the religious instruction?" He thereupon moved that the parent should have one representative—;only one—;out of the six on the board that was to choose the religious teaching for his child. What did the right hon. Gentleman, what did the champions of the rights of the parents say? "Not one." They would not have a single representative, although they wanted to know what was the particular brand of theology the parent wanted to be given to his child. In a voice choked with emotion they said, "This is an interference with the inalienable right of the parent." Where, then, was the parent in 1902? I remember the hon. Member for East Mayo, representing sincere denominationalism, saying that in rural districts where there is no choice for the parent he should have, at any rate, some voice in settling the kind of religious teaching his child should receive. The law drives the child to these schools, no matter what the religious instruction is; but when my hon. friend claimed a voice for the parent these present champions of the parent went solidly into the lobby, wiping him out and treating the parent as one of those lay figures who are always introduced when they want to perpetrate a job for their own class.
§ MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)The whole Radical Party voted for the parent then.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEI agree.
§ MR. DILLONI do not mention this by way of reproach, but as a compliment.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEThe hon. Member is a keen debater, and I am 1181 coming to that point by-and-by. But the attitude of the present champions of the parent among the Opposition simply came to this. Do you want to do something for the landlord? Not at all; it is the poor farmer. For the brewer? Not at all; it is the poor suffering publican. Is it a Bill for the clergy? Not at all; it is the poor parent. These excuses are always trotted out on these occasions for the purpose of controversy; but when you apply to them a genuine test what becomes of them? They disappear. The right hon. Gentleman did not talk much about the parent then. He will do so now because it suits his purpose. The right hon. Member for Dover cries "Clause 9." But that is a clause saying that if thirty parents make a demand they can have schools set up. He forgets the whole of the clause, however, for the words are added, "subject to educational efficiency and economy." Rates first, the conscience of the parent comes last. Clause 9, indeed, is our case. We say that educational efficiency and economy forbid the possibility of experimenting wholesale in denominational instruction in this country. I recollect an application made under the late. Government by Churchmen in Merioneth. Their application was rightly refused, for they were told that if they took thirty children from the village school they would destroy the efficiency of the school. You cannot go on keeping two schools in a little village whore there are only 100 children altogether, and, therefore, it was right for the Department to say that educational efficiency and economy must come first. The late Government recognised that the thing was absolutely unworkable. If you have a frankly denominational system you must give the same right to every denomination. But the assumption is made that no one holds dogmas except the Church of England and the Roman Catholics. You have to assume, however, that the Nonconformists have dogmas and that they differ one from the other, though it is also assumed that you can lump their dogmas together. But Nonconformists have their sects and dogmas which divide them.
§ LORD R. CECIL (Marylebone, E)Has the right hon. Gentleman never heard of the Free Church Cathechism?
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEThat is a catechism which I believe members of the Church of England are glad to teach in many cases where there is a Church majority on the council schools, in Liverpool for instance. But there, again, the inference from the interruption of the noble Lord is that, although we pretend to have dogmas that divide us, after all, what does it matter? It is only the difference between you and us that matters. The real chasm is between Dives and Lazarus, which you cannot bridge over; it is between the Church and Nonconformity. That is an assumption with a touch of arrogance in it. The Nonconformist sects have given the best pledge in the world as to the sincerity of their belief in their own individual dogmas. There is as great a sectarian patriotism among them as there is in the Church of England. What have they done? It is not easy to be a Nonconformist and to stand to your dogma in the rural villages. What is the state of the rural villages in England? All the people upon whom your living depends go to the village church. Two or three big members of the community may, and often do, make life intolerable for you. That is not a matter for amusement, but a pretty serious fact. Who, as a rule, are those who attend Nonconformist places of worship? They are generally artisans and labourers. [Cries of "And farmers."] Yes, in Wales the farmers. At any rate the powerful people of these villages as a rule are members of the Church of England, and the others know very well, when they pass the village church to their own little chapel, that they are offending people who can ruin their prosperity. I can give cases in Wales where they have done so. I am speaking of what I know, but I do not wish to enter upon that. No man goes to a Nonconformist place of worship unless he really has a great attachment to the organisation and the doctrines that are taught there. Well, now, what right has anyone to assume that the dogmas of the powerful Chuch matter everything in the world and that the dogmas of the poor despised chapel do not count? "What does it matter?" you say. "Lump them into a Free Church Catechism." I contend that if you give a right to any one denomination you must give it to all
§ EARL PERCY (Kensington, S)Why not?
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEBecause of Clause 9, and economy and efficiency to begin with. Has the noble Lord ever studied the educational problem in a little rural district? Suppose you have three or four sects there, as in the case of a parish in Merioneth, with a population of 500, that came up for investigation. There were two schools there, one denominational and the other undenominational, the larger having only thirty-two children in it. There you have the expense doubled. You have two headmasters; two separate equipments; and instead of getting one fairly good man, you get two underpaid men. Yet it is only by lumping all the Nonconformists together that you get no more than two schools. Suppose that each Nonconformist sect had a separate school
§ EARL PERCYWhy should they have separate schools?
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEWhy should a Nonconformist have a right to anything, except to pay the rates and make the rents? It is their business to obey the law, and it is the business of the Anglican to make it and profit by it. Why should not the Methodists and the Congregationalists have their own schools as well as the Anglicans? From a sectarian point of view it would be an advantage to them. They are a poor community, and it would be a great thing for them to have a trained and educated man with leisure to look after the Sunday school, to be church secretary, to play the organ, and to organise the evening meetings. It is only because they are sufficiently patriotic—;[Cries of "Oh."] Yes; Merioneth has rated itself for education a great deal higher than any other county in the kingdom. It has built more schools and spent more money; and its secondary schools, which it was not bound to rate itself for, are in greater proportion than in any other county. The Nonconformists saw that if each sect claimed a school of its own educational efficiency would be destroyed It is bad enough to divide a little community of children, who will have to work together when they grow up, into two antagonistic camps. The case is not like that of Holland, where practically you have two 1184 great sects—;the Calvinists and the Catholics—;or like parts of Germany, where you have Lutherans and Catholics side by side. It is not like Quebec. There the problem would be easy. But here there is only one way, and that is having some sort of common school for all sects; for above all the business of the State is not to bring up sectarians, but to train up good citizens, and the only way to do that is by having good schools.
We say that the best solution is a common syllabus. I recognise the Catholic difficulty. But first of all as to the objections of the Church of England, or of certain sections of the Church, to a common syllabus. They say that Cowper-Temple religion is Nonconformist religion. To say that is simply to ignore the whole history of the Cowper-Temple clause. Who forced the Cowper-Temple clause into an Act of Parliament? Churchmen, against the protests of all the Nonconformist leaders who wanted secular education. I think that Churchmen were right, and that this action is to their credit and glory. Who forced Bible teaching into practically every board school election in England and Wales? The Anglican Church; and again I think the Church was right, and that the Nonconformists were wrong. But, at any rate, it was the Church that did it. Take Birmingham. They beat the Nonconformist leaders there, and forced Bible instruction on the schools. In London, Liverpool, Manchester, and gradually even in Wales they got Bible-teaching introduced. They have beaten secularism. They have fought tenaciously for religious instruction, for Cowper-Temple teaching in the schools. They cannot turn round now—;and the majority of Churchmen do not—;and say, "This is Nonconformity. This is not our religion. The Bible! That is not our Book." [Cries of "Oh!"] Well, they cannot have it both ways, It is they who have forced it into the syllabus of our schools. Nearly every syllabus in England has been drafted by Churchmen. I do not believe you can produce 20 per cent. of the syllabuses that were not prepared by Churchmen. They have prepared them in London and most of the great school boards; and in Wales there is hardly a case where the parish clergyman has not sat upon the committee and agreed with the Nonconformists in the 1185 preparation of the syllabus. Who teaches the syllabus? Two-thirds of the teachers are Churchmen. I ask hon. Gentlemen, who challenge these syllabuses as if they were Nonconformist catechisms, can they point out a single syllabus in England or Wales where there is a line that is repugnant to the conscience of Churchmen? Can they point to a single syllabus in which anything is taught that is contrary to any dogma of the Church of England? That is more than they can say for the catechism, which is a denominational book. But there is this to be said about the Cowper-Temple religion as it is called. It is Protestant. I was struck very much by the speech of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, who read a striking document stating the position of Catholics towards religion, and their views of the Bible and the Protestant doctrine of freedom of judgment. But is that the attitude of Churchmen towards the Bible and freedom of judgment? The Bishop of Birmingham treats the Bible as a sort of creation of the Church. But that is not the attitude of Anglicans generally. The vast majority take the Protestant view; but you have a position which seems almost irreconcilable. If the Anglican Communion would frankly take its place at the head of Protestantism in England there would be no difficulty to be solved. There is not a part of the Empire or of the world where it does not, except here. What happens in Canada? There you frankly divide the community into Protestant and Catholic. The Anglican registers himself as a Protestant invariably, together with the Wesleyan, the Presbyterian, the Baptist, and the Congregationalist. The whole trouble comes from the fact that there are many Churchmen who repudiate this Protestant association; and there is a touch of meanness in it; for it makes the position of the Catholic, whose position is irreconcilable with Cowper-Templeism, exceedingly difficult. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to imagine that this Bill was a monstrous attack upon the Church because we cannot recognise that each sect should be established. It seems to me that sectarian differences are largely artificial in Protestant churches. It is perfectly true that there was a time when these dogmas did represent the real differences, but the fences have become decayed and 1186 there is a good deal more intercourse now in the matter of doctrine than in the old days, and the real difference in the Protestant Church is not a difference between one sect and another but a difference between the advanced theologian and the one who sticks by the old ideas. The difference is really the same as you get in politics; it is the difference you get in politics between the Liberal and the Conservative—;the difference between the man who progresses and—
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURWhich is the man who progresses?
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEThe right hon. Gentleman is asking me to embark upon a subject which I really dare not. He can pick theologians from half-a-dozen denominations and say that those represent one class of thought, not because they belong to one sect, but because they represent the views of one class of theology—;call it advanced theology, or revolutionary theology, if you like, but at all events, it represents the difference between Liberal and Conservative schools of thought. I will take three men who differ absolutely about this Bill, namely, the Bishop of Birmingham, Canon Hen-son, and Dr. Clifford. If you set these three theologians to write a manual for a school for the religious training of the children you would probably find that there is very little difference between them. I have no doubt that when my statement comes to their knowledge they will all repudiate it. Therefore, there is no real division upon this question between denominations, because the fences have been broken down. There would be no difficulty in the matter if you had a clearly defined issue between the sects upon matters of doctrine and dogma, but you have not got it. What the right hon. Gentleman sees in England is only part of a general movement which occurs in every democratic country in the world. There are three great democratic countries, namely, America, France, and England. What do you see in France? It is a great Catholic country, and what have they done with the schools? What have they done with the established Catholic religion? [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: The Freemasons have done it.] They had an election fought there substantially upon the same issue—;the issue of clericalism. What happened there? 1187 Exactly the same thing as in a Protestant country. Go to America. That is a country to which Catholics flee from the tyranny of denominational countries like Germany and this country. They go to America for liberty. What do they get there in denominational instruction? They would not get a four-fifths clause. America would not look at it.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGENot quite. They read the Bible in the schools there and there was an increasing demand for it. There is the same thing here. It is part of a great movement. Democracy has come to the conclusion that clericalism is its enemy. It is no use saying that this is hatred towards an individual Church. It is the instinct of three great democratic peoples moving in the same direction towards what they believed to be real liberty of conscience and the only guarantee for continuity of liberty of conscience. I am not minimising the issue. There is a great issue between us which we cannot, I fear, bridge over. What is it? There are things we agree upon. We agree that education is not merely the training of the intellect and the cramming of the mind with knowledge. We agree that it is the business of the State also to train and discipline the conscience. There is a great common ground for agreement. I think there is agreement that this can be done on the basis of Christian morality. But where we differ is this: We differ on the question of whether it is necessary in order to teach Christian ethics to a child to inculcate the doctrine of any sect. That is the difference. It is the position taken by the people of this country. I think it is a definite and clear stand they have taken, fully realising what they are doing. It is wonderful how the instinct of the people has been guided between the two extremes through the whole of this controversy for thirty years. First of all, the secular solution. They rejected it. Then came the other extreme, the right hon. Gentleman's Bill—;extreme sectarianism. They rejected that. But the people have made up their minds to take their stand and to rally round the Bible. They are anxious that it should be placed in the hands of their children, believing 1188 that acquaintance with its contents will make those children better men and better women. Not only that, but that its principles will help to bring about a better condition of things for them to live in than their parents ever knew. The true parental demand is this: that no ecclesiastic or politician should be allowed to stand between the child and the light of the great Book which saved England from darkness, and which will continue to illumine the gloom that oppresses human life, after the last sect shall have vanished from the scene.
§ * SIR WILLIAM ANSON (Oxford University)The right hon. Gentleman has told the House generally what he considers is the solution of the educational problem of the present day. I had hoped to have heard from him a somewhat detailed defence of a Bill which, if one might judge from the debate of last night, needs a good deal of defence not only from the attacks of the Opposition, but also from the nominal supporters of the Government. The Bill no doubt offers many points of attack, and I think the attack of yesterday was hardly adequately met by the very general and very interesting discussion on the state of theological opinion in this country, in Europe and in America, which we have heard from the President of the Board of Trade. This Bill, unlike the measure of 1902, can hardly be said to be an Education Bill. The Bill of 1902 was an Education Bill. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh, oh"] It was a great scheme for bringing education of every type and kind under the control of the local authority in every area. To put it in two or three words, it was a Bill for municipalising education. The House occupied many months in discussing not the great features of the Bill, but the terms under which the voluntary schools were to come into this system. I am happy to think that the great structure created by the Act of 1902 will be left intact, although modifications will no I doubt be made in this Bill before it becomes law as to the terms under which the voluntary schools are to exist. The Act of 1902 was attacked last night and to-day. It was attacked last night because it conferred privileges. I deny that the Act of 1902 conferred any I privileges whatever. It is said that it conferred privileges on the Church of England by making certain requirements 1189 on the teachers. The Act of 1902 imposed no tests on the teacher, and imposed no requirements of any such character on the teacher. It imposed no sectarian disabilities. What disabilities were imposed on the teacher were the result of trust deeds which the Act of 1902 did much to relax. The trust deeds in many of the schools required that all the teachers should be members of the Church of England. The Act of 1902 left it to the managers to employ the teachers of other denominations, except in the case of the head teacher and always subject to the interests of the child. It was said last night that the Act of 1902 conferred privileges on the training colleges. The Act of 1902 did nothing for the training colleges in the way of privilege. Training colleges built by the denominations continued to receive after 1902 the grants they received before then, and there was absolutely no obligation laid upon any local authority to give rate aid to any denominational college. We have heard yesterday and to-day questions as to how far the Act of 1902 dealt satisfactorily with the single school areas in regard to the rights of parents in those areas. I think my right hon. friend the Member for the City will admit that the single school area presented difficulties which were not adequately solved by the Act of 1902. But what was the proposed solution of the then Opposition? It was that one or two parents should be chosen for the board of management by the parents of all the other children attending school in the area. The objection to that was, that in the first instance it created the difficulty of a shifting constituency and of discovering who were the parents entitled to vote. In the next place there is always great difficulty in getting a constituency of this sort to vote when its votes are required. In the school board elections there were seldom 50 per cent. and sometimes barely 25 per cent. of the voters who went to the poll. It was very difficult also to get people to manage these rural schools, and when the right hon. Gentleman gave a description of the inadequate management of a rural school in which the clergyman was an ex officio manager under the trust deed, and the great landowner acted with him, I could not help thinking that he must be very little familiar with the process of managing the rural schools, at any rate in a great part of England. The 1190 Act of 1902 was an Education Act. This is an Omnibus Act. It is the work evidently of many hands and of many influences. I see in one part the work of the Free Church Council; in another part the National Union of Teachers; and in another again the Welsh Party, Here and there, no doubt, education furtively creeps in, and the President of the Board of Education may be observed as having had some influence in the composition of the Bill. But I maintain that this is an Omnibus Bill and not an Education Bill. It deals with education here and there as affected by various political influences thoughout the country.
Then we are told that the Bill is the result of a mandate. If anything was before the electors of this country it was I suppose a mandate to secure complete popular control of the schools, and the abolition of tests for teachers. I am not aware from the answers given to my right hon. friend to-day that any tests for teachers which were in existence before are abolished by this Bill, but when we are told of a mandate, surely it is not so very long ago that the Government invited us here to assent to a proposition that the issue before the country at the general election was the issue of free trade. Nothing then was said, of any other topic such as this topic of elementary education. I am bound to say that, although I have no doubt that political Nonconformists and the Teachers' Union did in places exercise their influence and did endeavour to secure the return of Members who would vote for the two issues described, if the Education Act of 1902 had any serious influence on the election that influence was due not to what is called its sectarian character, but owing to the increase in the rate which it involved thoughout the country.
Let me deal with one or two of the salient features of the Bill. Before I pass to the matter which is more pertinent to the Bill, I will say that the right hon. Gentleman has told us something about the Welsh council. What he tolls us is that the council is entirely subject to Parliament. I suppose there is no institution in the United Kingdom or the Empire which is not subject to the Imperial Parliament, and I do not think that anyone of us supposed that the Crown, Lords, and Commons could not take 1191 up, recast, abolish, or alter in any way the proposed council for Wales. What I do want to know is who is to be responsible for the action of this council? The powers and duties of the Board of Education and of the Board of Agriculture are to be handed over to it.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEThe council takes over the education powers of the Board of Agriculture.
§ * SIR WILLIAM ANSONI never supposed that the council would deal with agriculture except in regard to education. I really think that the right hon. Gentleman might have understood my remark, because it was obvious what the meaning was. All those powers are to be handed over to the council. The money which the Board of Education receives for educational purposes in Wales is to be handed over to the council, and what I want to know is this. Supposing this Welsh council does some act which may be considered an injustice, or is guilty of some neglect of duty, or any of the local authorities subject to it commits some breach of duty, or any educational vagary occurs which may disturb persons interested in education in this House, to whom are we to refer? Are we to refer to the President of the Board of Trade? The one person to whom we should not refer is the President of the Board of Education; he will have done his duty when he has handed over the money. He cannot take it back or control its use. He can smile in the presence of inquiry if the taxpayer wonders how the money has gone, or if it is an educationist who wants to know something of the education which is being given. Where is the responsibility for the action of this council? I may say in passing that, fully as I recognise the importance of what is called co-ordination of all branches of education in Wales, I believe there is nothing that can be done by this council which could not have been done under the Act of 1902 by means of a joint Committee of the various local authorities.
Another small point is the abolition of the register. The abolition of the register involves great hardship which I think is hardly recog- 1192 nised by this House. Students have for the last four years been qualifying for this register at some cost of time and money, and they have deferred the commencement of their professional career in order to qualify for it. I understand from an Answer given by the President of the Board of Education before Easter that the conditions of the register are offensive to the elementary teacher. The elementary teacher is to be considered because of the political influence of the Teachers Union, but the students, many of whom are women, are comparatively insignificant. We know that some of these young students will suffer if the register is to go. The President of the Board of Education was good enough to tell me the other day, when I asked what compensation was to be given to the poor teachers who had given their time and money in vain, that the knowledge and experience which they had acquired ought to be compensation. Suppose that the right hon. Gentleman's constituency at Bristol were disfranchised, would it be any consolation to him to be told that the political experience he had acquired contesting the seat and the advantages which he had enjoyed in informing himself on educational subjects during the time he had been in this House ought to be compensation? I think that this goes beyond a reasonable use of the saying that virtue is, or ought to be, its own reward.
I pass over the question of trusts in Part II. because that was dealt with by my right hon. friend the Member for Dover. I will only say that it is a matter which will have to be looked into very carefully in the Committee stage, because there is an element in the Bill which excites suspicion as to the mode in which denominational endowments may be treated. The constitution of the Commission in Section 8 of the Bill and the conditions under which it is to work make us naturally anxious as to how trusts are to be dealt with under the Bill. The action of this Commission is of immense importance to all the voluntary schools, or the greater part of them The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said yesterday that the voluntary schools would be certain to get denominational facilities, for that was provided under the Bill. 1193 That is not provided under the Bill. There is nothing compulsory in the clauses which deal with denominational facilities except this, that those facilities are not to be given for more than two days in the week, and that they are not to be given by the recognised teachers employed in the schools. As to that portion of the Bill, I really wonder that any Government should have put such a disability on the teacher in a Bill brought forward on a serious occasion such as this. Here are teachers qualified to teach the children and willing to teach, and because they are the recognised teachers of the school they are to be kept clear of denominational teaching. Really I call that a piece of meanness, I might almost say spite, and I shall look forward with a melancholy interest to see how it is to be defended by the President of the Board when that portion of the Bill comes on for discussion. But these facilities are the result of an arrangement, and the local authority may make an arrangement by agreement and can alone initiate such an arrangement, and you must remember that many thousands of the voluntary schools are held under trust, and that many of those trusts are trusts for educational purposes coupled with the proviso that the education is to be given in accordance with the principles of the Church of England. The whole chance of an arrangement to carry out the purposes of the trust must depend on the action of the Commission. What are the powers of the Commission? Their exercise depends on the initiative of the local education authority, which is anxious to make an arrangement convenient to itself. What are the powers of the Board of Education as regards these schemes, apart from the Commission? If a scheme were framed under the Charitable Trusts Acts, there would be an appeal to the Chancery Division and thence to the House of Lords; and if a scheme were framed under the Endowed Schools Acts there would be an appeal to the Privy Council and to Parliament; if under the Education Act of 1870, enlarged as it was by the Endowed Schools Act, there was no appeal, but then the Board could only act on the initiative of the persons interested in the endowment. This Commission has to act on the initiative of the local authority, and there is to be no appeal whatever. Now, what may happen, 1194 supposing the Commission choose to construe a trust as providing that education was to be given in accordance with the principles of the Church of England; that the Bill made it impossible to do so; but that they were bound to give elementary education; they could then take the school on their own terms. Does the Government seriously propose, first of all, by the artificial process of the enactments in the Bill, to cheapen the article they want to procure and then to take it on their own terms? There is a very broad hint in the Bill that that is the course that they could take. If that is to be the construction of these trust deeds by this Commission, then I say good-bye to facilities in thousands of cases? At the best, supposing such facilities are given, the Bill is tainted with inequality. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade described the various difficult ecclesiastical, social, and economic questions which were involved in any solution of this question; and to judge from his speeches here and elsewhere it would seem that the difficulty was insoluble. But the Bill now before the House proposed to solve it by indicating one sort of teaching and one sort only to be paid for out of the rates. I ask what sort, and is it provided in the Bill? It is most curious that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said that Cowper-Temple teaching was provided in the Bill and the President of the Board of Education said that the Cowper-Temple Clause provided for the teaching of the common principles of Christianity. I want to know whether there is any security that anything of that sort will be taught under the provisions of this Bill. As regards the teaching, the Bill proposes to solve the question by endowing one sort of teaching only out of the rates. I ask what sort of teaching, if any? We know perfectly well that in many parts of Wales no religion of any sort is given, and 1 believe that it is in an increasing number of schools, and more particularly in South Wales.
§ MR. LLOYD-GEORGEIt is decreasing.
§ * SIR WILLIAM ANSONI am glad to hear it; but where no religious teaching is given the parent is helpless and I could take the right hon. Gentleman to 1195 a parish in South Wales, where there are two schools and no religious teaching is given in the county council school, while religious teaching is given in the voluntary school, and the Nonconformist parents send their children past the county council school to the voluntary school rather than that they should have no religious instruction whatever. That means that the working classes of this country are averse to secular education; but in the rural districts they are to be left absolutely helpless if the local authorities choose to forbid the use of the Bible teaching. But supposing we have this Cowper-Temple teaching under the Bill, what does it come to? It is an absolute negation. If you look at the Cowper-Temple clause you will see that no religious formularies are to be used; but subject to this that any doctrine may be taught so long as it is not based on a catechism or formulary. Teaching in regard to the sacrament may be given which would satisfy the highest Catholic doctrine, or the Gospel story may be treated from the point of view of a Unitarian or an Agnostic. No doubt, there are good syllabuses of instruction, but we cannot rely on every local authority to provide good syllabuses. The existence of the admirable syllabus in Hampshire was no excuse for the absence of any religious teaching in the county of Carmarthen. Then we must consider that there are very potent influences on the side of the supporters of the Bill who desire that Bible teaching should be limited to Bible reading. Dr. Clifford, for instance, has maintained from time to time that the Bible should be read and that the teaching of the Bible should be given in a non-credal—;non-dogmatic form. That puts the Bible teaching on a lower footing than every other kind of teaching. Every other kind of teaching given to the child is dogmatic. The rules of grammar and of spelling are not matters of private judgment, nor is the multiplication table allowed to be regarded as a series of interesting probabilities. In Bible teaching alone everything is to be regarded as an open question. And that then we must remember that this sort of teaching is to be given in the voluntary schools which were built for the purpose that religious instruction should be given in accordance with the principles of a certain religious society—;Anglican, Roman Catholic, or what not; and these buildings 1196 are to be taken and diverted from those purposes for which they were founded, and devoted to a purpose which the hon. Member for Liverpool regards as absolutely hostile to the intentions of the founders, and which the hon. Member for Leicester regards as perfectly useless. Now, I say that the only mode of dealing with this question is to arrange for absolute equality among all denominations as provided for by the Act of 1902. There is no doubt that that is not the equality provided for by this Bill. I do not suppose that the warmest supporters of this Bill will deny that it violates the principle of equality, inasmuch as it takes the religious teaching which is satisfactory to a portion of the community and imposes it upon all. Clause 4 is anything but satisfactory to those who wish for really definite denominational religious instruction. It is precarious in its operation and depends upon the will of the local authority. The right may be taken away by a shifting population which elects the local authority who appoints the teacher. I admit that the teacher is given absolute freedom to decline to give religious teaching. [An HON. MEMBER: "Hear, hear."] An hon. Member says "Hear, hear," but if you employ a man to do a thing and he declines to do it while retaining his employment, I want to know whether the Bill consecrates a violation of contract? Then Clause 4 is not satisfactory to the hon. Member for Leicester and for a very good reason, Clause 4 does away with the one merit of the Cowper-Temple clause. The one merit of that clause was that it preserved the local authorities from internal dissensions as to the type of religious instruction which they should provide in their schools. Anyone who has served upon a county council when the question of a subscription to a voluntary school under construction comes up for discussion must know that the local authorities may spend hours of time and waste temper on the question whether they will grant this privilege to the four-fifths or not, and the subject will furnish material for irritating controversy at municipal elections. Then it is not satisfactory to the hon. Member for Louth, and so little is it satisfactory to him that he threatened the Government with a recrudescence of that form of martyrdom known as "passive resistance." I should 1197 be sorry to contemplate in the future any breach of the law by that very respectable body which the hon. Member for Louth represents, but I have no doubt I that if the law is broken the Government will take care to enforce it. I shall rejoice to see the President of the Board of Trade and his colleagues enforcing the law under the circumstances. I shall be inclined to remind him of a line which I remember from my classic studies—;
Quis tulerit Gracchos de seditione querentes.On the other hand, so satisfactory is this clause to some hon. Members that the hon. Member for North Camberwell wished to amend it and make it a necessary part of the duty of the local authority to carry out the clause, that is to say, the hon. Member for North Camberwell wished to put the friends of the hon. Member for Louth to the necessity of becoming "passive resisters," by enforcing the clause upon the different local authorities. I cannot think that Clause 4 redresses the real grievance created by the Bill, and I cannot think it will be a satisfactory topic of discussion among the local authorities of the country. I wish the Government joy of the result of their efforts to get rid of the useful and wholesome provisions of the Act of 1902.I asked just now whether the local authority could call upon the teachers to give the teaching which is required with reference to the special circumstances of Clause 4, and I want to know what is the real meaning of the tests to be applied to teachers. I mentioned just now the provision of the trust deeds, which no doubt impose a disability upon head teachers in regard to appointments under them. Frankly, I am opposed to that limitation. All my life long I have been opposed to subscriptions or tests of any sort for holding office, but what we contested when we were discussing the Bill of 1902 was this, that the managers of the local authority were entitled to ask the teacher whether he or she could conscientiously give the religious teaching which was engaged to be given in the school. I am glad to know that that right will not now be withdrawn from the employer, but then I should like to know what is to become of the clause which is supposed to be the teacher's Magna Carta freeing him from all religious tests? 1198 But to turn to another side of this question, if the teacher need not teach, and if the parent need not send his child, during the hours for religious instruction, it is clear that religious instruction is to be placed very much in the background. The President of the Board of Education has said that, for the purposes of the law, school attendance is marked at the beginning of the time fixed for secular instruction. That is not so. School attendance begins at the time fixed for the opening of the school by the local authority. What the President was thinking of, perhaps, was that the Parliamentary grant is only given for secular instruction, and that secular instruction always begins after a reasonable time has been given for religious instruction, and the Board of Education will not sanction a by-law which does not leave time for religious instruction before or after secular instruction. Therefore I cannot understand what is meant by the clause which allows the parent to keep his child away. The President has said it was sanctioned by a by-law that was passed some years ago. That is not so. The parent is bound to send his child during the whole time that the school is open. But if the local authority or the managers are satisfied by the parent in writing that he intends to withdraw his child from religious instruction, then the child need only attend during the time for secular instruction. But this permission is only given where the parent desires the child to receive religious instruction elsewhere. As the law now stands it provides that the child shall be in school during all the school hours. Some years ago a local authority framed a by-law which defined no time for religious education, and only defined a time for secular education. I had some correspondence on the matter, and then I submitted it to Lord Londonderry, who decided that we could not allow a by-law to be passed which left no time for religious instruction. That is not merely a matter of passing interest, because we on this side shall absolutely insist that religious instruction shall be given during the regular school hours. It seems to me that the clause taking religious instruction out of the time of school hours is one of the worst features of the Bill. Something has been said as to the rights of the parents, and the hon. Member for 1199 Leicester said that the parent had no right in regard to the religious instruction of his child, and that the child had a right to demand the protection of the State if the parent imposed or required religious instruction of which the child disapproved. My impression is that if a child went to its parent with that view and expressed it, the matter would be settled otherwise than by argument. Dr. Clifford objects to the parent's having any voice in the matter as regards the religious education of his children under the four-fifths clause. He said the parent would be in the position of a plural voter. He would have a vote in the election of the local education authority, and then he wanted a further vote in regard to the religious education to be given in the school and that this would give him an undue privilege. That means, if it means anything, that the parent ought to have no rights whatever in regard to the religious instruction of his child. By-laws which have prevailed since the Act of 1870, approved by the Board of Education, give the parent the right to insist that religious instruction shall be given during the school hours, and to withdraw his child from religious instruction if the religious instruction given is not of the kind which he approves. We claim that he should have the opportunity of obtaining for his child the religious teaching which he desires. That will be insisted upon by the Opposition again and again during the progress of the Bill. I oppose the Bill, because it is a wanton interference with a settlement which is working well throughout the country, except where political efforts are made to disturb it, because it imposes injustices on denominations, and because it violates the right of the parent to decide as to the religious instruction of his child. The President of the Board of Education has said that minorities must suffer. I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for putting the matter so frankly. I understand then that the motto of the Nonconformist party is "the spoils to the victor." The right hon. Gentleman has given the Opposition an excellent weapon for improving their position in the country, and of ceasing to be a minority perhaps earlier than would have been the case if the Bill had not been introduced. But, minority or not, the struggle must go on. There is no peace in the Bill. The Opposition 1200 will endeavour to bring into every home in England the knowledge of the injustice and tyranny which the Bill proposes to inflict, and, though we may be beaten in this House or even in this Parliament, the struggle will not then be over. Few as we now are in the House I believe we shall win in the end, for our cause is the cause of liberty, justice, and right.
§ MR. ALFRED HUTTON (Yorkshire, W.R., Morley)In opposing this Bill, the right hon. Baronet used very strong language. He spoke of the injustice and tyranny which he was going to combat. But I am not sure that the right hon Baronet, or any one else, will ever devise any Bill dealing with the religious difficulty that will not impose some injustice and tyranny on some denomination. The right hon. Baronet began his speech by trying to escape the charge made by my hon. friend the Member for North Camberwell that the Act of 1902 did work considerable injustice as between different denominations. All the injustices, whether they existed before 1902 or not, were magnified under the Act of that year by their being paid for out of the rates without full public control being given, and the right hon. Baronet tried to avoid the charge that when the late Government provided the expenses of these injustices, they ought to have provided for full control. Before I allude to the question of the religious difficulty, I should like to say that I am very sorry the Bill has not dealt more widely with the question of secondary education. The only thing it has done for secondary education is to remove the limit of twopence on the rates. We have, after all, had some experience of the movement of local authorities in the direction of secondary education, and I think a small extension might have been given, first of all by the removal of some of the conditions imposed by the Act of 1902, and secondly by enabling the local authority to obtain more control over the provided schools.
Another matter which I am sorry has not been more adequately dealt with in this Bill is the matter of administrative reform. Everyone who knows anything of the working of the county councils is aware of the difficulty of administering the Act of 1902. We are told that by that 1201 Act we have municipalised education. At all events, we have officialised it. Teachers are now subject to bombardment by circulars which are so frequent that it is impossible for them to keep up with the instructions they receive, and they are visited by inspectors so numerous that it is almost impossible for them to remember the instructions It is important that some new authority should be established which should have the management of the schools, and which should be able to take some amount of responsibility for the administration of education over the area. There is the further omission, that I must mention, to deal with teachers' training colleges. The Minister for Education is probably aware that during the course of the debates on the Bill of 1902, those of us who were attacking the Government at the time came near to defeating the then Government on the question of the training colleges and the abolition of tests in the training colleges. We received on that occasion most generous treatment from the House, and at that time the House was willing to take a considerable step in that direction. I think it is right that with regard to that, something should be done in this Bill. It is most desirable that in some way the question of the training and the probation of teachers should be brought within the four corners of this Bill, that we should have some opportunity of discussing it, that we should not merely be told that the county council will do all that is necessary and that we are to leave it to them, with the certain knowledge that nothing will be done.
The proposals of this Bill have been attacked in two directions. They have been attacked in the first place because they establish a new religion. I am surprised that that attack should have come from hon. Gentlemen opposite. They say it is a tyranny to establish a new religion. But if it is a tyranny to establish a new religion, I do not see that it is not tyranny to continue to maintain an old religion. In the second place, they attack the Bill because of what they call the confiscation of property. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover, who opened the attack upon the Bill, demanded two things. He demanded, in the first place, that the State should be 1202 neutral towards all denominations in the interests of religious liberty, and, in the second place, that all denominations should have equal treatment and should above all be provided with some amount of State support. I say the State cannot be neutral towards all denominations where it is providing the opportunity and the means by which each denomination is to carry on its religious teaching. The only way in which it can be neutral is to have nothing whatever to do with any denomination, but to let each go its own way and provide its own means to carry on its religious teaching. The second demand is from all the supporters of the Act of 1902, and the argument is that we shall move further in the direction of concurrent endowments. It must be obvious to everybody who has made a study of religious endowments that concurrent endowment is by no means the same thing as religious liberty. In endowing each religion you are bound to do some injustice, and directly you work injustice you are establishing grievances and hardships; you are preserving not the interests of religion but the interests of denominations and sects. I believe if this House were to take any further stop in the direction of concurrent endowments we should meet with the same result as the late Government in their Act of 1902. When the extreme view of concurrent endowments was put before the people, it was condemned by the country at large. Obviously, unless the principle of concurrent endowments is carried to its logical conclusion, it is bound to end in injustice, and as we cannot carry that principle to its logical conclusion, the President of the Board of Education has endeavoured to find another solution. He proposes to divide the country into Protestants and Catholics. I do not think he will succeed. The four-fifths clause does not carry that out now, and by his own proposals the right hon. Gentleman does not draw the line of demarcation between the Protestants and Catholics, which he admits would be the logical conclusion, but says that if one section of the Catholics of England choose to say that they do not accept what is called simple Bible teaching, that it is offensive to their consciences, then it is a matter of justice on the part of the State not to press it. But the only alternative is that the State shall hold its hand in the case of all denominational teaching. It is 1203 very extraordinary to me that the right hon. Gentleman should have changed his mind. I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that if the Nonconformists who stood in 1870 for secular education had stood out we should never have heard of the Act of 1902, and we should never have been in the position in which we are to-day. The right hon. Baronet spoke of there being no peace in this Bill. I do not myself believe there is peace in it, and I do not know that any Bill which insists upon denominational teaching in the schools will ever bring peace to the Government and the administration. Only one result can come from all these controversies, and that is that the State shall say that secular education shall hold the day. I may, I know, in saying this, be accused of religious indifference. Lord Hugh Cecil made many appeals to the Nonconformists to fight the religious indifference of the day, but I venture to say that the question will not be fought out by Churchmen and Nonconformists standing together to fight it out in the schools. If religious indifference exists to-day it exists largely because the parent can throw his responsibility very largely on the shoulders of the State official in the schools. If parents had been made to feel their responsibilities in this matter from 1870 onward we should not have to fight this question today. The hon. Member for North Camber-well, replying last night to the hon. Member for Leicester, said that if we had secular education the result would be that thousands of children would go without religious teaching. They might for a short time. But is not that the opportunity of the Church? I believe the throwing by the parents of their responsibility in this matter upon the State and the local authorities to be the cause of the religious indifference of to-day. No; we are going to fight it, as the President of the Board of Trade says, by a great rally round the Bible. We are to have this rally round the Bible, and we are to have this Bible teaching in all the schools. Clause 4 will be a big price to give. When I heard my right hon. friend on the First Reading I thought that Clause 4 would be a clause that could be accepted by us with the intention of enabling the Government to get over a very difficult situation. But what kind of reception has it received? I am bound to say that the reception it has 1204 received at the hands of those for whom it was made has changed the view of a very great many Nonconformists, and many who were favourable at first have had their opinions very considerably changed. I know, in regard to the teacher, at any rate, many would make a very determined fight in order to remove the test which is bound to be imposed on the teacher in order that the intention of Clause 4 should be carried through. If it were to bring peace even for ten years I would accept the clause as it stands, but if the clause is to become mandatory it would change my view and that of many of my friends, and I cannot conceive that any Government would add to their difficulties, as they necessarily would, by making Clause 4 not optional but obligatory. Many Nonconformists who would take every opportunity of meeting legitimate claims, if they were allowed to do it at their own free will, would never accept such a clause as this if made obligatory. All these claims are based upon what? We are asked to accept now the indefeasable and inalienable right of the parent to have his children taught in his own religion—;yes, but at the public expense. When did this right become a natural right? In the first place, it is not a historic right of the Church of England. It is certainly not a historic right of the Roman Catholic Church. Neither of these two churches have ever taught that. It has certainly not been a historic doctrine of either church that the parents had a right to bring their children to be taught religion at the expense of the State. We admit the right of the parent to teach his children religion at his own expense, but there is no such natural right to have them taught religion at the expense of the State. We have only had free education since about the year 1890, and it was not until then thought that it was the natural right of the parent to have instruction at the entire expense of the State, and certainly that did not include religious education. If this claim is to be insisted upon we must have some justification for it. I have often heard the claim made, but I have never heard an argument in its favour. I have said that I do not think this Bill if it becomes an Act is likely to be a permanent settlement, but I do think it is a great and valuable step towards the final settlement 1205 of this question, and I can only conclude by expressing my firm conviction that the difficulty can never be finally settled so long as secular education is allowed to be mixed up with religious teaching. Ultimately that settlement will have to come. In the meantime I think this Bill will make a very considerable step forward.
§ MR. BLAKE (Longford, S.)I may excuse myself for addressing the House by saying that I happen to have had a somewhat prolonged experience upon this subject. For forty sessions in three Legislatures in different countries I have witnessed and taken some part in the discussion of problems which arise in their concrete form by the association of a Protestant majority with a Roman Catholic minority. Long ago I found and took my ground upon general principles, and having adhered to that ground I was rather pained when I heard from the lips of the Minister of Education the other day a statement with reference to the rights of minorities which I am afraid was susceptible of another, and what seemed to me in the connection in which he used it the natural and obvious interpretation. Speaking of the question between Roman Catholics and Jews, it might be, and the various Protestant denominations, he said—;
All minorities must suffer. It is the badge of their tribe.Well, Sir, some suffering may sometimes be inevitable in the carrying out of some measure of great public policy which the majority of the nation believes to be essential to its progress or its existence. That suffering ought as far as possible to be avoided, but for my part my belief is as I expressed it twenty years ago in a Protestant community, somewhat different from the tone and the sentiment of the right hon. Gentleman. I may venture to quote it because it represents the ground I took long before, which I have maintained ever since, and which I hold to-day—;Being strong we ought to be what the strong should always be, generous to the weak; measure full, heaped up and running over, is the measure to be given by the strong to the weak; and by so acting we will exemplify true Christian principles; we will exemplify true Liberal principles; we will do our best for the promotion or true Christianity, and for the spread of the Gospel.Those are the general views with which I approach all questions of this descrip- 1206 tion. This is an English Bill and we are concerned here mainly for Irish Catholics who have brought with them, from the country from which they sprang, sad traditions of those evil days to which I have referred, and who are naturally jealous to the last degree of their religious rights, and suspicious of any interference with them. I say that is a natural jealousy; it is a natural suspicion; it is a jealousy and a suspicion which you ought to respect, and as far as possible avert in the course of your legislation. They know what interference brought them in the past, and this feeling is in their blood and you must not quarrel with them; you must not be impatient with them; you must rather be anxious in the future to give them no excuse or pretence for imputing evil motives about what you do to-day. Do your part and do it in such a form that you may help to obliterate those sad memories, and create in them a confidence that you will respect their convictions. Those in the country of the Irish race, for whom we speak, are mainly of the poor and lowly. They are of the toilers whose share of this world's goods is small, and perhaps for that reason they look to joys that are to come. Now I will make no attempt to deal extensively with them, or to touch at all upon some of the topics which are to be debated on this Bill. I would say with regard to an observation made by the hon. Member who preceded me, that he seemed to have somewhat forgotten, in his declamation against parental rights to have some voice in the education of their children, that that education has been made compulsory by the State, and he seemed to have forgotten that after all a parent is a member of the State—;that he contributes to the taxes of the State, that he contributes to the rates and that it is out of his taxes and his rates that the State is maintaining the system of education, whatever it may be, which is made compulsory upon that parent. He does not call for a subsidy, but claims that he shall be assisted to perform the duty which the State has made compulsory and which the State has undertaken to perform according to its own fashion. In the debate of 1902 my hon. friend the Member for East Mayo made a courageous and memorable speech. He then pointed out that as an inevitable consequence of that measure a share of the public control would be demanded 1207 and would be obtained as the result of the system of public and compulsory education propounded in the Bill. The hon. Member for East Mayo proposed an Amendment in that direction, but his voice was not listened to by those in whose interests the Bill of 1902 was passed; but, nevertheless, his voice spoke the truth, for we are now face to face with the position which has been rendered inevitable by concrete facts. A situation was created by the Bill of 1902 which has to be met and dealt with to-day, and, therefore, the hon. Member for East Mayo's view has so far been verified. It is, however, not so much that simple proposition, but the extent and the character and the methods of interference and the inadequacy of the safeguards in respect of which we believe the Bill is fundamentally vicious and will trench unwarrantably on the rights of the minority for whom we speak. I am going to confine my remarks to some of the aspects of Clause 4 and the alteration to a compulsory form which the right hon. Gentleman deprecated most emphatically while at the same time he averred that he did not believe it would make a difference in a single school, which meant that in every school area the clause would be put into operation. If it would be put into operation voluntarily what object is there in making that clear and plain which is going to happen everywhere? That is what Parliament shall be—;the law. We are strongly of opinion that it is essential to the security of that minority, which in various parts of the country will have to fight these battles under the protection of this clause, that that protection should be made absolutely operative. We believe this to be no loss important to the whole community. We believe that to leave the question whether that clause should come into force or not to the judgment of each council or local authority, which under this clause is to exercise judgment upon the question, would be to throw into the hands of the bigots and zealots, and those who delight in religious controversy, a firebrand ready to hand to be used for local purposes in local elections, and this would create difficulties of all descriptions. Nothing could be more injurious to the peace of those communities than to leave this as a wholly permissive clause. In my own country of Canada, after struggles of the most desperate character, involving 1208 the greatest extremity of bitterness between religious denominations, and disturbing the general peace and progress of the country and all political combinations, I rejoice that an agreement was made between those two provinces under which the overwhelming Catholic majority of one province agreed to respect the rights and dissensions of the majority by making equal laws for each. It was agreed that that should be made a fundamental element of the constitution. I agree that there are not the same elements of finality here as in Canada; but such elements of finality as you have you had better use, and the first of those elements is to determine the initial question, and to say that in cases in which you determine that there ought to be the right given in certain circumstances it shall be given. There is the suggested objection that there may be on some of the local committees cranks who will object, but whatever strength there is in that argument is infinitesimal compared with the evil of sending it as a firebrand to the country, and the bitter struggles which what you have proposed will create. Do what you think is right, and if you think this is not a right clause then reject it; but if you think it is right and just to the Roman Catholic minority that there should be such a provision, then use all your power to enact it. The view which the President of the Board of Education expressed in introducing this Bill rather added to than relieved my disquietude when the clause was read first, because he said—;I admit it is asking these minorities to trust in the generosity, the equitableness and the fair-mindedness of the local authority.I daresay in many cases that will be justified, but I know not how far those other complications to which I have referred may arise. The right hon. Gentleman said—;Public opinion would resent any obstructive withholding of the permissive privilege.What public opinion? The public opinion of the locality? If so, then the difficulty would not arise. Does he mean the public opinion of the country at large to be made operative by discussion in this House and another Act of Parliament? We know the difficulty of jessing an Act of Parliament to protect a Catholic minority against a Protestant majority, and it would not be very 1209 readily operative. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say—;But they might truly say that it is left to their judgment even in the case of a four-fifths majority, whether or no; and therefore in canvassing, in election, in discussion, each rural area has this question in its own hands.The right hon. Gentleman also pointed out that although he believed in justice and generosity, that the question was really in their own hands, and that it was for them in their own individual cases and with reference to their own community to judge and to decide. Those difficulties that I felt and which I now entertain have been assuaged in one sense by the right hon. Gentleman's speech to the Jewish deputation, in which he said—;Assuming the provisions of Clause 4, with reference to non-provided schools, to be illusory (and of course if they were illusory they would be a fraud) the Jewish body would benefit more largely than any other body; but it was pointed out that it was not a complete protection because it was not obligatory on the local authority to ascertain the facts.So far the right hon. Gentleman is accurate. The right hon. Gentleman has imposed the duty upon the local authorities to make local inquiry for the purpose of ascertaining the facts, namely, the percentage of persons of one persuasion as compared with another.
If four-fifths of the parents of the children desire facilities it was an obligation upon the local authorities,These are ambiguous words; I do not know what obligation the right hon. Gentleman means.
Of course, the local authority, if so minded might disregard the fair intention and the nature, and obstinately hold aloof from doing anything further.Now, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman acknowledges that may happen. He has described his interpretation of the statute. If it is the fair intention of the statute that in any case in which the conditions prescribed by Clause 4 are found to exist the local authority shall agree, then what is the difficulty in saying that they shall agree?He would take care that their view that a statutory obligation should be imposed upon the local authority to do its duty was put before his colleagues.And he went on to point out that there was some difficulty in dealing with local authorities and that he did not know what the remedy would be, and so on. If the right hon. Gentlemen, with all the 1210 authority he has and all the authority with which he may ask Parliament to invest him—;if this Imperial Parliament is unable to deal with the local authorities, how does he expect the poor Roman Catholics to deal with the Protestant majority in the locality affected? Then the right hon. Gentleman said—;It was hard to believe that any great local authority could be so bigoted as to disregard this statutory duty, he would not say obligation, imposed upon them for the education of the country.Well, if it is a statutory duty, let us make it plain it is a statutory duty; that is all we ask. Make it clear that it is what the right hon. Gentleman describes it to be. If it is a statutory duty then they have to perform it. The right hon. Gentleman at present leaves it to their free decision whether they should perform it or not.
He was sanguine enough," he said, "to believe that no local authority would refuse to Jews, Roman Catholics or Churchmen the full advantages of the parliamentary grant which Parliament intended them to receive. At the same time there was considerable substance in this point, and he would give it careful consideration.I am sure that consideration has been given to this point, and I hope that the communication which the right hon. Gentleman said he would make to his colleagues has been made, and we will be greater relieved if we learn that the clause is to be made mandatory instead of permissive. The light hon. Gentleman then went on to deal with the question of the teachers. I am not at this moment dealing with that point. I am now dealing with the question whether Clause 4 should be mandatory or permissive, and I submit to the House that in the interest of the local authorities, in the interest of the Roman Catholic community, in the interest of the peace of the country, it is desirable not to throw this bone of contention into every place to which the clause may be applicable, but, if Parliament has decided that it is the duty of the local authorities on certain conditions to use the clause, to make that plain and clear by stating it in the enactment.I now come to the percentage limit; the number in each school is not shown, and we have only general results of which we can produce the average. The only true thing to be said of the average is that it does not properly represent any one actual 1211 case. We cannot tell in how many of the schools there may be a question above or below four-fifths, and the same observation may be made of the population limit of 5,000. These are considerations that require careful study before they can be exhaustively discussed. I only mention this as a consideration which it is necessary to take into account before we can realise the real importance either of the percentage limit or the population limit suggested. To my mind, and I say it at once, the percentage limit appears to be too high. Again, as to the exclusion of rural areas, I see no reason for the exclusion. There exists a provision for the necessity of establishing a convenient possibility of interest in another school as an element for the application of the fourth clause and that convenience is bound to be ascertained by the local authority. If that convenience is not available in the rural area it will exclude the rural area just as it excludes the urban, but if it is available in the rural area then I see no reason why the rural area should be specially excluded from the operation of the clause. It seems an invidious exclusion as well as useless. It seems a restraint without any reason at all for it. I, at all events, see no reason for it. Then I hold that there is of necessity an element of considerable importance in the question of the census proportion. It is known that the working population of the country, and what includes perhaps more than their proportion of the population—;the Irish population—;is from the necessity of the case migratory. It is one of the hardships of their lot that they cannot conceive a home of; their own. They may be divorced from their surroundings and obliged to find new homes, following the course of industry from time to time. We have therefore to deal with a migratory population, and that migration may result in the proportion's being slightly disturbed one way or another at short intervals. Do you propose to unsettle things by having every year or every few months a fresh census or a fresh inquiry, and if you find it is one below the four-fifths are you to disturb everything and upset everything, or do you propose that once established the right shall remain for a reasonable period? I think that the argument of convenience and practicability points to a considerable element of permanence, in the settlement of the 1212 question once it is settled, and that disturbance should only be at reasonable and long interval. I come now to the other point on which the local authority is to decide, and that is the question of convenient attendance for those who may be excluded by the school's keeping the original character which it has and which it is intended to retain. Therefore, you get a concrete question. You have one question the effect of which I have already alluded to, namely, the existence of the proportion of the children belonging to the several schools. You come next to the question whether there is convenient attendance, and even if there exists that proportion, even if a school is so constituted as to be practically almost a homogenous school as in the case of a Roman Catholic, a Jewish, or a Church of England school—;even so, the general minority, though here in the individual case the overwhelming majority of the local population, is to suffer unless it turns out that convenient school places can be obtained elsewhere at a convenient distance for the small minority. On that subject there is to my mind a difficulty in the Bill in that it does not provide for an appeal to the central authority from the judgment of the local authority on the question of convenience of access. It affords a more convenient loophole than the question of the application or non-application of the clause when the percentage of the school population has been ascertained. This question of convenience is one point on which it is very easy to differ, and I think that more careful and more unbiassed consideration—;a consideration better calculated to do justice—;would be ensured if the determination of the local authority on this question of convenience were not final but made subject to an appeal to the central authority.
Now, I come to the finally excluded schools. If my suggestions as to the reduction of the proportion of scholars and as to the reduction of the population of the area be adopted—;vague and general as I have made them, for I am dealing with principles and not with details which are more appropriate for the Committee stage—;if these suggestions are adopted the number of excluded schools might be much reduced; but whatever the number might be it is considerable at present, and I hold that in conformity with those principles to which I alluded in my opening remarks 1213 it is fitting that those finally excluded schools, if they prefer to retain what those who built them believed to be vital in their character as Roman Catholic schools, shall continue to retain that character. If they prefer that they shall not come under the Act and be acquired by the local authority, I hold that they have not forfeited their right at any rate as parents to their share of the rates, or their rights as parents even to what I would call a generous capitation grant. Therefore, I hold that they ought not to be left absolutely destitute as the Bill at present proposes to leave them.
I leave now all the questions connected with this branch of Clause 4 and I turn to what, after all, is more vital still—;more vital than the question of "shall" for "may." I turn to the question of the appointment of teachers, because that is the root of the whole matter. What is wanted is that a school shall retain its existing character as a Church of England school, as a Jewish school, or as a Roman Catholic school. What must be acknowledged is that it cannot substantially and effectively retain that character unless the teachers are such as to give confidence to those who send their children to the school, and that being so, it must be acknowledged it is plain that there ought to be more security for the parents' right to have the teachers such as will keep the school of the character which it now is and which it is intended by the provisions of the Act to retain. I think the importance of this question cannot be exaggerated. I think that there ought to be a provision for a parents' committee with a negative or an affirmative voice in the choice of the teachers. Remember that you are hoping to make provision for what will last, if not in perpetuity, for a considerable time. It is a provision by which the local authority will perform merely the displeasing duty of displacing teachers from year to year, from month to month, or from week to week; and there will be, in numerous areas, cases in which there will be places to be filled up because of teachers becoming ill or dying or from other causes. Now, there ought to be some provision with reference to the choice of the teachers to fill these vacancies, and I have suggested such a provision. I am glad to know, quoting once again from the valuable speech of 1214 the Minister of Education to the Jewish deputation, that the right hon. Gentleman's view is that as regards the intention of the statute with regard to the Jewish teachers, the words in Clause 4 will require strengthening. He said—;
With regard to the Jewish teachers the words of Clause 4 might require strengthening; but the intention was that the schools should be carried on just as they were now—;that was to say not merely for a long time, but for so long as the arrangement lasted. He agreed that there was a loophole for any amount of pig-headed obstinacy, and denouncing bigotry, and jealousy, and unfairness, but it was certainly the intention of the clause that the teachers should remain the same as they were, those who were alone qualified to give the particular religious instruction which hitherto had been given in the school.I only demand that these words should be made good. I only demand practical security with reference to the future that these words shall be made good. As to methods that is a matter for Committee; but I think it can only be by the parents having a voice in the choice of the teachers. There is a lack also, I think, in the provision for taking over new schools in the event of population increasing in districts. Besides the natural growth of places by industrial enterprise there are other changes and shiftings of population, and while some towns have fallen away others have grown, and in dealing any way worthily with this question you must consider the rise of a new population which would require the same rights and protection as is given to existing schools by this clause. I venture to suggest, therefore, that the clause is entirely defective in point of security, and leaves the Bill in a condition in which it is obviously not adequate, the object being, as I hope it is, by a reasonable measure to settle this question for a reasonable time, and so relieve this House from such discussions as the one we are now engaged in. I earnestly hope that the difficulties to which I have alluded and others which I have deliberately abstained from presenting to the House upon this occasion may be met at some further stage by the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues. For us these defects are at present insuperable. They are defects particularly as to the choice of teachers, which affect the rights and consciences of those for whom we speak; they are defects which it is impossible for us to overlook; they are defects, therefore, which render 1215 it impossible for me, at any rate at this stage, to vote for the Second Reading. But, I hope that, by continuing the discussion in the tone adopted by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division, in a temper moderate and firm, the day may come at some later stage of the Bill that we may enter a different verdict upon the Bill.
§ * MR. MACLEAN (Bath)I am bound to say that, judging from what we have heard, the speeches of hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House have been based on the assumption that no general election took place in January last, and that the question of education has never been brought before the electorate. I had a great deal to do with that election in the West of England, and I am sure that had it not been for the education question we should not have had such a large majority in that part of the country. One would imagine that we were approaching the day of the tyranny of minorities rather than that of the tyranny of majorities. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have evidently refused to accept the logic of a stricken field. What did the last election decide? It decided definitely and clearly that there must be popular control of public schools, and that there should be one class of school; that there should be no religious tests, and no denominational teaching at the public expense. After all, the Bill is contained in Clause 1, from which follow the three points which were, as I have said, decided at the last election. After all, what has been declared by some hon. Members to be impossible, is a thing which has happened. "The impossible has clothed itself in fact, and gone through the hollow mockery of being done." There is not the least doubt that Bible teaching in the schools has been a success for thirty-six years. One would think that it had been suggested for the first time that there should be simple Bible teaching. With regard to the opposition which comes from the Irish Nationalists, I have been deeply impressed with the eloquence and sincerity of the appeals made from time to time from the Irish benches to the Liberal benches—;that the Liberal Party should trust them. In what way are they prepared to trust the democracy of this country with regard to the education question? I venture to say that the basis on the Ministerial side 1216 of the House is that of the citizen. We do not want unfair or unjust religious privileges for any sect or religious denomination. The position we take up is that of citizenship, and I appeal to our Nationalist friends opposite to join with us in granting to the democracy of England that trust which they have asked the democracy of England to grant to them. I venture to think that this Bill is conceived on broad lines and in a spirit of liberal compromise. I am quite prepared in the interests of peace to settle this question and to further any reasonable suggestion which may be made. Suppose, after all, these attempts at agreement fail as the Bill stands, there is a possibility of the matter being effectively and economically dealt with by the provision of schools of the State in place of schools belonging to denominations. By one clause a million of money is provided. By Clause 28 the time for repayment of the borrowed money is extended to sixty years and the money can be borrowed at 3¼ per cent. I have made a calculation and I find that within that period by using that million we can provide fully £25,000,000, which will be quite sufficient to simply adequate schools throughout the land which will be at the disposal of the people at all times. Such schools will be a magnificent national asset, and will be open to the people at all times, including Saturdays and Sundays. We on this side earnestly desire a settlement of this great question. We want to learn on which side of the question the most truth lies and to arrive at a proper and just solution. I give hon. Members on the other side credit for a similar feeling. I believe in the sense of the House on this question. But there is something greater than that. The spirit of the House has been handed down for hundreds of years; it broods and hovers over the House in the desire to find out what is best for the nation at large. When we descend from the heights of a Second Reading debate into the valley of hand grips in Committee we shall, I hope, proceed in a spirit of compromise. We have been sent here, not as delegates in the interests of any particular section, but to look after the good of the community as a whole.
§ * MR. EVELYN CECIL (Aston Manor)I wish to address some remarks to the House as I happened to be for five years on 1217 the London School Board, and to have fought two School Board elections upon a question closely associated with this Bill. We were promised that by this Bill we might get into the calm sea of a final settlement, but it we have been before in the choppy waves of the Channel, the Bill promises to bring us into Atlantic rollers. I had some confidence, and I have some confidence still, in the fairness of the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Education, and I cannot bring myself to believe that he is mainly responsible for the more contentious clauses of this Bill: I think they are rather to be attributed to the President of the Board of Trade and some of his colleague;. At any rate, much as I deplore having to fight this Bill, we cannot let judgment go by default. There is one thing upon which I may congratulate the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Education, and that is that this Bill does at any rate attempt to make some provision for religious teaching. We have heard speeches in favour of purely secular education, but I look with greatest apprehension of any proposal of that kind, and I think many of us on both sides of the House would agree in opposing it. I cannot believe that writers who assert, as I saw stated in a socialistic organ the other day, that socialistic reforms are far more important than religion, have really gauged where their opinions will lead them to. It is much too serious a matter for a country to be without religious teaching or religion altogether to believe that this House would assent to it for a moment. Lock at the state of things in France, where, I believe, even the fables of La Fontaine are forbidden wherever they mention the name of God. We do not know what will happen to future generations, let alone to the nation itself, if we allow the people to grow up without any adequate sense of national, moral, and religious responsibility, and without religious teaching. What are we offered by this Bill? The Bill will set up an undenominational religion which is to be made the standard religion of the country, and which is to be patented, as it wore, by the Government. If you are going to force down the throats of many of His Majesty's subjects a religion of which they disapprove, it seems to me to be on a level largely with the intolerance of the Middle Ages. 1218 Consider the case of a poor man who believes in definite religious teaching. A rich man can afford to send his son to a school where that definite religious teaching is given, but the poor man has no other choice than to accept for his son teaching with which he is dissatisfied, or else under the conscience clause to withdraw his son altogether from religious teaching. This, I repeat, is an attempt to force clown the throats of our fellow-subjects one form of religious teaching. Such a course was not approved by so great an authority as Mr. Gladstone, who, writing to Bishop Hamilton, said he was not friendly to the idea of constraining by law either the total or the partial suppression of conscientious differences in religion, with a view to fusion of different sects, whether in church or school, and that he believed that the free development of conviction was on the whole the system most in favour both of truth and of charity. That is a definite statement, and it seems entirely opposed to the principles of this Bill. What, after all, is this undenominational teaching? It is to vary with the whim of every local authority. ("No."] Yes, the local education authority has the power to impose a syllabus or not just as it pleases. We do not know whether this undenominational teaching includes the Apostles Creed, and this kind of undenominational teaching is to be given only at the mercy of the local education authority. Of course, you may have a good local education authority. The President of the Board of Education quoted the Hampshire County Council as a model under the present law. That is so; it does its utmost to carry out the existing law to the best effect.
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. BIRRELL,) Bristol, N.There are many others just as good as the Hampshire County Council, but I only quoted that one.
§ * MR. EVELYN CECILQuite so, but there are many county councils who do not go so far as the Hampshire County Council, and I have taken the trouble to obtain its regulations. I should like to know whether a large number of the local education authorities would make any regulation that the schools shall begin each morning with prayer, including the Lord's Prayer. 1219 Subject to the Conscience Clause, religious teaching is compulsory in the schools. Is every local authority likely to agree to that? In the second place, there is a regulation which provides that no teacher shall be called upon to give religious instruction if he has a conscientious objection, and if there is no teacher available for that purpose a teachershall be called in from outside to give religious instruction. I should like again to know whether all educational authorities will acquiesce in that? Will they allow outside teachers to be engaged to give religious instruction where a teacher in the school has a conscienious objection to giving it? Is a third regulation of the Hampshire County Council, requiring an annual inspection in religious instruction one to which all local educational authorities are likely to agree? I shall be glad to hear it is, but I venture to say there are many educational authorities that will not go so far as the Hampshire County Council. That being so, I am afraid we cannot guarantee that the denominational teaching which is to be given by this Bill will be a fixed quantity. It will be a variable quantity dependent upon the views of the educational authority. There are some local authorities which will not have any religious teaching at all. At the time I was fighting a very acute school board election in London in 1897—
§ DR. MACNAMARA (Camberwell)And got very badly treated.
§ * MR. EVELYN CECILI beg the hon. Member's pardon, I came out second on the poll.
§ DR. MACNAMARAI was referring to your Party.
§ * MR. EVELYN CECILThe interruption is quite irrelevant. At the time that election was going on official figures were quoted which showed that there were 320 school boards in Wales. Of those, sixty-two forbade religious teaching altogether, and 118 only allowed the Bible to be read without hint, note, or comment. That, I suppose, is to be the kind of arrangement to be permitted by this Bill. It may be that under this Bill the local education 1220 authority will refuse to make any terms with the managers of the non-provided schools and will refuse to give religious teaching in any school it builds itself. The position is very unfair. It is a position we must fight to the bitter end, and I regret to think that it is even contemplated in this Bill. I do not think hon. Gentlemen opposite fully realise how deeply we feel upon this subject. I am not speaking as what is called, an extreme High Churchman. I am not that. But I do think that definite religious instruction is a fundamental portion of education, and it is not a thing you can sell or barter for maintenance of fabrics or for handsome rentals out of public funds. It is far more important. We claim that it is an alienable right which belongs to parents just as much as the right hon. Gentleman will admit free education is. Something has been said already, and I should like to say something more upon the fact that no teacher need show the slightest competence to teach religion. He need not even believe! What other country ever had such a notion as that? In secular education we are insistent that the teacher who teaches history, geography, or any other subject, shall qualify himself by the most stringent examination. In religious teaching, on the other hand, teachers need not necessarily believe. They are not to be asked if they believe. The other day I was told of a case where a boy asked his teacher with regard to some religious dogma in which he had been instructed, "Sir, is that true?" and he was told, "You may believe it if you like, but I don't." Such an answer as that was enough to shatter the religious convictions of every boy in the class. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Education said the other day that he had been struck by the secular atmosphere of the voluntary schools. Does he suppose that teaching such as this is likely to lessen the secular atmosphere in any degree? I like denominational teaching because it secures in many cases the continuity of the atmosphere of home and school life. Imagine a family where at home a child is imbued with the idea that he ought to go to church on Sunday and when he goes to school 1221 he finds the idea of going to a place of worship is altogether discredited! I do not say that is always the case, but it is sometimes the case. Does any hon. Gentleman think that such an answer as I just now mentioned, "You can believe it if you like, but I don't," is likely to encourage that idea?
With regard to the Bill itself I want to observe in the first place that it is rather remarkable that it does not touch the secular clauses of the Act of 1902. I am glad that it does not, because it shows the Government pay a great tribute to the secular clauses of that Act. I suspect that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister for Education hardly realised when he distributed Liberal leaflets throughout the country at the time of the election how good an Act the Act of 1902 really was, With regard to the finances of the Bill, we are to pay £1,000,000 of money under Clause 12. Who is going to benefit by that? Who gets his value for his money? I cannot see that anybody is going to benefit except the Nonconformists. We do not want to spend all this money in this way. We would much prefer to leave the law as it is. We would welcome what we believe to be the remedy for the one grievance of the Nonconformists—;I have said so before in this House—;to provide for them whatever religious teaching they desire in all the schools in the country. But if that is to be done, let us spend the £1,000,000 in doing it. Why spend it, not in educational efficiency in any sense, but merely to give value for their money to some of the Party opposite, and a large proportion of the ratepayers and the taxpayers—;I would say the large majority, are people who object to this undenominational teaching. Some speakers have criticised our attack on the clause interfering with the trust deeds. In this country trust deeds are generally considered binding. Hon. Members were surprised at the use of such terms as "filching away" and "confiscation," but I do not think they can appreciate our standpoint. We have been encouraged by the State to maintain these schools. Let hon. Gentlemen opposite put themselves in the position of a donor to a hospital—;or take myself. I give a handsome donation to a 1222 particular hospital, and continue to do so for a number of years to encourage the management of that hospital. I have no right whatever at the end of, say, twenty years arbitrarily to transfer that management into entirely different hands. I gave those subscriptions to encourage the management of the hospital in the manner in which it had been carried on, and when people have given donations to voluntary schools they have done so on the same conditions. It is not suggested that when Parliamentary grants were given to voluntary schools they were not given to encourage the management of the schools in the old way, and no one would have supposed that the State in supporting those schools was going to say that the education must be given in a different way. But now the right hon. Gentleman comes forward to set aside all provisions and trust deeds if the local education authority see fit, and to give the schools over to purposes which they were expressly founded to avoid.
Then upon the question of facilities. There are to be no facilities in Council schools. Why not? Is there any reason for setting up two sets of schools? In one set you are not to have any facilities under any circumstances. In the other, the existing denominational schools, you may have these facilities under certain circumstances. I believe facilities are practicable everywhere. The hope has been expressed by the hon. Member for South Longford and other hon. Members that the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to make Clause 4 mandatory. That is the only way to deal with it. If Clause 4 is to be dropped, as I think one or two hon. Members have suggested, I can only promise them that that will ensure that this Bill will not be a final settlement at all, but a most complete declaration of war on the part of the Government against denominational teaching. If it is the desire of the Government to make some endeavour to effect a final settlement, I would urge them not to listen to any such suggestion as dropping Clause 4. I do not think that the figure four-fifths has any special virtue, and I would refer the right hon. Gentleman to Clause 27 of the ill-fated Government Bill of 1896 in which he will find that the words are not "four-fifths" but a "reasonable number." I hope the 1223 right hon. Gentleman will accept the substitution of "a reasonable number" for "four-fifths." I object still more emphatically to the clause which provides that this denominational teaching shall not be given in school hours. That is one of the provisions of the Bill to which I have the most resolute and strenuous objection. What is to happen if you put this teaching out of school hours? Would it ever be likely to be looked upon as a matter of great consequence at all? My experience when a child was that directly a subject was taught as an extra it was disliked. If you are to put religious teaching on that basis you pave the way most effectually to secularism out and out. Again, I used to hear on the London School Board, when this system of facilities was urged, that one of the greatest objections to it was that possibly you would have outside teachers, and that consequently discipline would suffer. It was then suggested that religious instruction under any system of extended facilities ought to be given by the teachers with whom the children are familiar so as to maintain discipline. Here we are going to run riot and encourage—;if that contention be true—;want of discipline; and besides, where is the freedom of the teachers, so strongly advocated as a rule by their National Union? Many teachers consider that definite religious teaching is essential. Why are you taking away their freedom by enforcing undenominational teaching? I should have thought that if the National Union of Teachers carried out its views logically, and urged, as it generally does on most other matters that there should be absolute freedom for the teaching profession, it would have opposed any proposals such as this Bill contains to restrict the freedom of the teachers in such important particulars. I will not refer in my criticism to the Commission which the right hon. Gentleman has proposed, more than to say that it seems to me that some of its features recall the Star Chamber, and that I cannot help thinking it must be an excrescence on his original draft.
I do not think I ought to sit down without mentioning what I consider the best system as a remedy. The Minister for Education knows perfectly well that the Industrial Schools Act of 1860, Clause 20, provides 1224 for definite religious instruction in all industrial schools, and the parents or guardians of the children may insist on getting that definite religious instruction in which they believe. Is not that a method which the right hon. Gentleman might have followed? We have heard nothing up to now about the Industrial Schools Act. I suppose it is thought wise to keep it in the dark, but it has worked extremely well, and I cannot imagine why the Government should not have made some effort to introduce that system for all day schools. I plead that the right hon. Gentleman will still consider whether he cannot introduce a similar system into all the elementary schools of the country. It does not seem to me to offer any very great difficulty. In Germany and Austria religious teaching is carried on in that way and is given at the expense of the State, and there is no difficulty about it. In Western Australia there is a similar system of delegating teachers to enter the State schools, and it is so simply arranged that many denominations—;Wesleyans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists—;combine in submitting the same lists of delegates to the State authority so that the system should be worked more easily. Why cannot that be done in this country? It is of paramount importance that parents of all religious denominations should be allowed to obtain for their children that definite religious teaching in which they believe, for it is the want of definite religious teaching which is the most serious outlook in the future. Some of us know the East End of London well. I have been there from time to time, and what I have noticed is that the great mass of people there belong to no Church and believe in no creed. I think it is absolutely essential that from their youth, boys and girls should be brought up to believe in something definite, otherwise they are apt to drift as they grow older into crime, irreligion, and a dulled sense of right, which whispers that morality is either useless or futile. We want to stop all that. There is a fine passage in one of Ruskin's works which says that crime can only truly be hindered by taking away the will to commit 1225 sin, and not by mere punishment of its commission. It can be stayed by education, but not education of the intellect only, which is wasted on some men and for others is mischievous, but by education of the heart; and it is the education of the heart which we denominationalists want. Oh, that we could avoid making this so controversial a question! Cannot we try to join in accepting each other's convictions, as Mr. Gladstone advised, allowing each denomination to give its own teaching, and by that means showing greater toleration to each other, trying to work more together for that closer unity of all Christian churches which I believe at bottom we all desire, and so ensuring that the future of this country will see a generation growing up which has regard to religion and morality, and for the national greatness and welfare which all that noble foundation involves?
§ MR. ADKINS (Lancashire, Middleton)I hope in the few words which I shall venture to address to the House to have that indulgence already given to many who, like myself have, in this session, addressed the House for the first time. I do not propose to follow the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, in a detailed criticism; but I hope that if I cannot advance this question, at least I may do nothing to embitter it. The hon. Member for Aston Manor asked what benefit the £1,000,000 voted under this Bill for the hiring of existing schools, or the building of new ones, would be. He said that it would be no benefit to Churchmen who are contented with things as they are, and suggested it was merely an endowment for Nonconformity. I would like respectfully to suggest that this Bill cannot properly be judged if it is judged merely from the point of view of Churchmen, or of Nonconformists. That £1,000,000 properly spent by local authorities will be for the benefit of citizens and for the benefit of education, and I would point out why this Bill may commend itself to Members in all parts of the House on grounds not so closely connected with the religious controversy. I venture to speak as one who has been trying for some years to administer various Education Acts which the wisdom of Parlia- 1226 ment has seen fit to pass, and I say, without hesitation, that so long as you have the dual system, and so long as you have tests for teachers, the educational system of this country cannot be as efficient and as thorough as it should be. In the county of Northampton, where you have to deal with a large area and a scattered population, it is no exaggeration to say that half the time of the Education Committee and of its sub-Committees has been occupied with matters arising directly from the dual system, and from the want of sub-ordinate authorities—;time which might otherwise have been spent on the direct educational work which is waiting to be done. Therefore, on the mere ground of administration I think it highly desirable to get rid of the dual system. I agree with an hon. Member who spoke earlier that the first clause of the Bill is the Bill in a very true sense. By getting rid of the dual system we are taking a step which must be taken before we can advance towards the other educational requirements. There must be many Members who know how much time is taken up in apportioning the cost of coal or of gas, or of settling the endless conundrum as to how many different authorities the so-called voluntary schools belong to in the course of twenty-four hours, and I should think all will agree in wishing to remedy that state of things. I understand the Leader of the Opposition to say that the school buildings remain the property of the denomination, but if the cost of all repairs and of all duties connected with the schools are placed on the local authorities there will be a unification of administration which I hope the right hon. Gentlemen will approve. In doing this is there involved any violation of those rights of conscience which are as dear to us as to those on the Opposition side?
Under the Bill in many of the schools religious instruction will be given as it was before—;at any rate in the provided schools. I believe that in the non-provided schools nine-tenths of them will remain as they are to-day. In the diocese of Peterborough I find that specific denominational instruction is given on only one day in the week, and only for half the year. I ask the House to consider whether a system which 1227 combines administrative unity with the power of giving nine-tenths of that religious teaching, and the time in which the other one-tenth can be given by those who believe profoundly in it—;whether it is fair to describe a Bill calculated to bring that about as a measure which will violate the rights of conscience. I agree with the principle laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover that the State should be neutral in these disputes. I recollect the way in which the hon. Member for North Camberwell pointed out how neutrality was set at naught in the Act of 1902. The doctrine of neutrality is a very novel one to come from the Opposition, because it is unknown in English legislature up to the present time. The hon. Member for Marylebone knows the political policy of the Church of England from the days of the Act of Uniformity to the days of the Act of the right hon. Gentleman. The very principle on which the State acted was that national education should be handed over to the Church and be her special privilege and preserve. We all recollect what occurred in the reign of George IV., when episcopal interest prevented the beginning of national education apart from episcopal control. Some of us have read in the administration of Sir Robert Peel, how Sir James Graham brought in provisions in connection with the Factory Acts which would have still more closely riveted education as the privilege of one religious body, and on that ground they had to be dropped. While I would be the last person to impute to the Opposition the predispositions of their political ancestors, I say that this sound doctrine of political neutrality is one contrary to the traditions which they embody, and one the very novelty of which is an additional reason why so many of us are anxious to support this Bill.
With regard to the provisions of the Bill, I will not intrude any remarks upon Clause 4, but if I understand the Bill aright it is an attempt to give greater public control and to put more and more of the interest of education upon citizens of all creeds rather than upon citizens grouped in hostile creeds. If that is so, I say the success of the Bill, alike in passing 1228 through the House, and in being carried out in the country, will depend upon the thoroughness with which that sound civic principle is carried out in all its clauses. I hope the Government do not hold the doctrine of verbal inspiration in respect to some of the clauses of the Bill. Under Clause 3 the local authority has put upon it a very difficult and complicated duty with regard to the taking over of schools. The local authority as at present constituted is the town or county council, but it has to act through a committee largely composed of persons who are not representative or who represent the very interests involved in the proposed action of the local authority. I hope the Government will see their way to say that in all these transactions and bargains between the local authority and private owners those members of the education committee who are not elected by the people shall on these issues have no vote; because if you leave the local authority affected by the decisions of the committee, some of whom are interested in the other side of the bargain, you are cogging the dice against public control, and you are unintentionally placing them in the position of that fortunate defendant who had his principal witnesses upon the jury.
With regard to Clause 26, for which I thank the Government, I hope it may be looked upon merely as a skeleton to be clothed in the conduct of this Bill through Committee and to be made more general. I hope that not only the Government but the House will approve of authorising every county council to prepare some scheme of general devolution which, while retaining its own supreme authority, will bring home at once to small localities their duties, rights, and privileges in regard to educational administration. I most cordially support the Second Reading of the Bill, and I look forward to the discussions in Committee to improve it in many particulars. As so much has been said, and properly said, with regard to the religious question and undenominational teaching, I would like to say, in conclusion, that I do not agree with the contention that we have heard from the Opposition that denominational teaching and undenominational teaching can be fairly compared in the sense that if you allow one you must allow 1229 the other. Denominational teaching involves an advantage to a part of the community whilst undenominational teaching does not advance the sectional cause or advantage of any part of the community. While we all admit at once the logical rigour and the extreme unattractiveness of the secular solution of this question, I hope the Government will adhere to the principle of the Bill and make one more experiment to see whether Englishmen generally cannot unite in the inculcation of simply Christianity which they can supplement and modify in their other relations, and by passing this Bill at once assist good educational administration and remove existing obstacles from educational progress, and so forward the cause of education in this country that neither the conscientious sacerdotal pretentions on one side nor secular theorists on the other may for many a long day break down the fabric which may be created by my right hon. friend's scheme and by his persuasiveness in this House.
§ * MR. BUTCHER (Cambridge University)After listening to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, with its language of passionate violence and militant sectarianism, I have no longer any difficulty in seeing why it is that there has hitherto been no solution arrived at in England of those denominational differences which have been adjusted in other parts of the civilised world. In Germany and Canada, as in Scotland and Ireland the denominations have been able to compose their differences, but in England up to the present this has not been the case. As a person much more concerned about education than with theological controversy, in which I am wholly unpractised, I will do my beat in what I have to say to avoid any bitterness of speech. The main feature of this Bill is the abolition of the dual system; what is henceforth aimed at is a uniform type of school and a uniform system of religious education, which is called undenominationalism. What is undenominaalism? The debates of yesterday and to-day are sufficient to show that it is an exceedingly difficult thing even for the most honest inquirer to find out what it means. If undenomina- 1230 tionalism means the teaching of the foundation truths of Christianity, I, for one, cannot join in some of the harsh things that have been said about it. I frankly admit that it often has meant a simple but thorough instruction in those central truths; and an appeal has been made to the experience of the last thirty-five years. It was made yesterday in several impressive speeches, and it has been made also to-day; Bishops and Archbishops of the Church of England have been quoted to show how excellent in many cases has been the religious education given by the London School Board and other school boards. I do not question that at all. No doubt undenominational teaching may be of such a kind; but must it be so? and, above all, must it be so under the greatly changed conditions which the Bill would introduce? Have we—;I will not say any guarantee, but any reasonable assurance that it will be so? If the experience of the last thirty years has proved anything, it is that undenominationalism is something fluid, shifting, intangible, sometimes differing very little from the teaching of the Church of England, sometimes shading off into pure secularism. I will cite two witnesses, both representative men The late Bishop Creighton said that undenominationalism so far from being a simple religion had turned out to be highly complex—;
Its complexity would baffle the mind of the most experienced theologian.Dr. Joseph Parker declared—;It needs a body of police to watch it and college of divines to define it.Hitherto we have had two chief safeguards; first the fact that alongside of the undenominational schools the Church schools have existed; they have created a friendly rivalry; and have set up a standard. Secondly, a very considerable proportion of the teachers even in the board schools have been trained in the training colleges of the Church of England. Now, the voluntary schools are to be swept away, and already there is an outcry on the other side of the House and from that Party outside the House that the denominational training colleges, the last remaining safeguard, should go also. Indeed I do not feel sure whether under the Bill as it stands denominational 1231 training colleges may not be abolished. We shall be glad to hear of that later from the Minister of Education. Then there is a third point marking a great difference between the prospects of the near future and the experience of the last thirty years. Under the Bill the status of religion in the schools will be altered. Religion is no longer to be a subject which is necessarily taught by the teacher; it is placed outside school hours; it is, in fact, reduced to a secondary and subordinate place: and surely that fact must affect seriously the character of the teaching. Let me mention another point. In the course of the last thirty years everyone is aware that there has been a very marked growth of secularist opinion; and the paramount question for us now is, what form of religious education will best stem the tide of advancing materialism and agnosticism? Can you wonder that the bare residuum of Christian truth which is to be taught in the schools in future seems to us insufficient for that purpose—;that highly attenuated form of religion which is accepted, but avowedly only for the moment, as common ground by the two sections of the Nonconformist party, the secularist and the undenominational Nonconformists? The truth is that you cannot here argue from the past to the future with any degree of confidence. The conditions are absolutely changed. Nor can one blind oneself to the fact that there has been a growing divergence between the ideals of the Church and of Dissent, and that this divergence is now the more sharply marked when secularists and undenominationalists have agreed to combine their forces.But it has been said that much as we may dislike undenominational education, it is the only thing we can get from public funds—;that State money cannot go to,—;denominational teaching. Well, is it not a poor and ignoble conception of citizenship to say, "I refuse to contribute to any definite form of religious instruction which does not exactly harmonise with that which I desire for myself." Why should not each person pay his share by rates or taxes or both—;I see nothing inviolable in the rates—;to build up the religious life of others? This seems to me to be 1232 a debt which one fellow-citizen owes to another, a reciprocal duty arising out of the sense of a large organic life. The other and opposing idea I believe to be a survival of the old and obsolete notion that the State is a mere policeman, the protector of life and property, concerned only with the material welfare of the community. We have all of us outgrown that idea, and we recognise that the State is concerned with the whole organic life of society, with all the higher activities and energies of its members. I believe there is hardly a man in this House who could not say with Burke: "The State is a partnership in all science, in all art, in every virtue, and in all perfection." And if so, is not all that goes to the discipline and training of character including, pre-eminently, the moulding and penetrating force of early religious training—;is not all this within the province of the State? We are told that the State is undenominational. But this only means that the State is neutral or impartial towards all denominations, and it can show its neutrality in one or two ways, either by ignoring all denominations or by supporting all. The objection made this afternoon by the President of the Board of Trade to the second alternative was this, that it is impossible for the State to concern itself with so many rival sects. That might be a practical difficulty if it were not that in this country there is a natural grouping of denominations which reduces them to a limited and manageable compass, and makes the endowment or recognition of all denominations no impossible task. Let me not be told that this is a doctrinaire idea: not a bit of it. We have attempted to carry it out, though not with entire success, in England; we have carried it out successfully and consistently both in Ireland and Scotland. When I hear hon. Members on the other side of the House speaking as if it were a first principle or axiom of politics that we cannot give State money for denominational teaching, I ask, do they know what is going on across the Channel in Ireland and what is going on in Scotland? In Ireland education is entirely denominational, and every penny is paid 1233 out of taxes. Even the sacred doctrine of public control does not exist there in the most elementary form. In Scotland the board schools are denominational; the education is for the most part based on the Westminster Confession of Faith, and these schools are supported both out of rates and taxes. Both in Ireland and Scotland, moreover, there is no religious minority so small that the State does not recognise its voluntary schools and aid them with public money. Why, in the name of religious equality and of common sense, are these principles to be set aside for England?
Most persons, however, will admit that the State has some religious function. If so, on what basis can it be exercised? On no equitable basis except the right of the parent; the right not merely to withdraw a child and keep its mind a blank, not merely the right to say "He shall not learn that," but the right to say "He shall learn this other thing." It has been asked how parental rights can be respected in the case of a single Presbyterian child. I admit that you cannot in every instance carry out the principle absolutely. None the less the principle remains the right thing to aim at; and what I complain of in the Bill is that what ought to be the rare exception is made the guiding principle of the Bill, and what ought to be the principle becomes the rare exception. I think it was the late Bishop of London who said that hitherto it had seemed as if the parent existed only that he might be prosecuted when his child did not go to school. Something similar might be said of the speech delivered yesterday by the hon. Member for Leicester. Parents, he declared, had no rights. The parent, according to him existed, it would seem, in order that the child might appeal against him to the State, which was its true guardian. Both in the Bill and in the debate in the House far too much contempt has been thrown on parental rights. Some say, parents are indifferent, they do not care whether religious teaching is of one kindor another. Well, find out whether they care; put it to the vote in each locality; give them an opportunity of expressing their opinions; but already 1234 throughout the country parents are showing whether they care or not. Then, when they do express their opinions do not say, as has been too often said in the last few weeks, "It is all an organised hypocrisy." The only clause in which there is an approach to any full recognition of parental rights is Clause 4. But it is the recognition of urban parents only, and of comparatively few of these. The rights of conscience become an affair of localities and of large fractions. I will not attempt to expose the inequalities in Clause 4—;it has been done already—;or the entirely irrational nature of that novel fraction which is to find a place for the first time in the Statute Book. It is distasteful even in the eyes of its own supporters; but to many of them it has one supreme merit, that it will in the main debar the Anglican Church parent from the exercise of his rights. Now if the Church of England had given a teaching so rigidly, so exclusively denominational that it could not have been accepted by the children of other communions; if she had not attempted to discharge her duty to the Church of the nation, and shown herself large-minded towards all who desired to share her instruction, then she would have come within the privileges of the "four-fifths" clause. As it is, she is to be penalised for her comprehensiveness, and that in the name of religious freedom!
The parents' rights, then, are one of the two cardinal questions on which the Bill turns. It is a question which closely touches the principles of civil as well as of religious liberty. The other cardinal question is the fitness of the teacher, and this goes to the very heart of the educational problem. What is the teacher? What does he know and what does he believe? That is even more important than, What is the syllabus? The competence of the teacher to give religious instruction depends on three things—;first, his knowledge, secondly, his training, and thirdly, his convictions. Now, as to knowledge and training, neither of these are required under the Bill, for religious teaching is entirely outside the sphere of his duty: it will not appear in the Code; and there is to be no test of his capacity under that head. Some eminent Nonconformists have even expressed the view that the Bible is so I simple a book that it needs no training to teach it. The simplest, indeed, but 1235 also the most difficult of books, especially to teach to a child! That wonderful and composite volume of prose and poetry, of history, biography, oratory, letters, drama, lyric, idylls—;unique in its diversity as well as in its unity! Such it is viewed on its purely literary side. But then the teacher has not only to teach the facts of Bible history and literature; he has also to teach the truths of religion, and here again we ask, Who is the teacher? What are his convictions? We are told his beliefs must not be "tested." It is assumed that for denominational teaching, tests are necessary, for undenominational teaching no such test is necessary. And yet we are told in the same breath that the teacher is to teach the fundamental truths of Christianity; in other words, he must teach dogma. Dogma then must be taught, but no questions may be asked to ensure that the teacher believes what he teaches. As for "testing" in the proper sense they do not now exist; we may put them aside. Now I would ask any Member of this House if he has ever attempted to teach a subject in which—;in whose truth, in whose value—;he had no belief. I have seen it done in secular learning, and there the result has been disastrous failure. In religion it would be a failure not merely disastrous but impious. And a child is very quick to detect the ring of insincerity. Every one is agreed that this early lesson in insincerity must at all costs be avoided. How can the danger be escaped? There are two possible ways. The local authority may make private inquiries; what kind of man is the teacher? where was he trained? is he a man of religious life? Thus they find out the Church he belongs to. Might they not as well ask him the question directly? Is the test by indirect inquiry less offensive than that by direct question?
The other method is provided by the clause which gives the teacher the statutory right to decline giving religious teaching. Assuming that the teacher takes advantage of that right, just consider how far-reaching will be the effect. In any given school it will lie absolutely with the teachers to decide whether any religions education shall be given; because there is no provision in the Bill for appointing others in their place, if they decline. I will put a case which I am quite sure is not fanciful or im- 1236 possible. The National Union of Teachers may resolve that indirect inquiries into religious opinions are against the spirit of the legislature after "the abolition of tests." They may feel, too, that religious teaching is a difficult acquirement, and that they are not trained to give it. Above all, they may hold that an inquiry into the fitness of teachers establishes an invidious difference between teachers. And so they may well come to the conclusion that they should, as a body—;I will not say strike—;but decline to teach religion at all. If they do so, then the ultimate decision as to the teaching of religion in the country, though nominally at the discretion of the local education authorities, resides in effect, not with them but with the teachers. Is it for this that Parliament is asked to shirk the decision whether religion is to be taught? I say that all these considerations when put together seem to carry us perilously far towards secularism. Let us sum up the case. If we put aside the privileged position offered chiefly to Roman Catholics and Jews, what will be the form of religion that will prevail through the length and breadth of England? It will be that local variety of the Christian religion which is drawn up under local option, embodied in the syllabus of a local authority, taught by teachers whose religious knowledge, and therefore whose professional fitness, is untested; whose religious or irreligious belief seem to be placed above all inquiry; teachers who are not bound to teach instructing children who are not bound to learn: this instruction supplemented in certain instances by a more distinctive religious teaching given not as of right according to the wishes of the parent, but on sufferance at the discretion of the local authority; outside of school hours and of school discipline, by teachers who for the most part will be amateurs; an instruction in which the trained and qualified members of the school staff are forbidden to take part, and even this grudging and precarious supplement to a colourless creed is by statute to be disallowed in all the existing county schools of the land.
In 1870 Mr. Forster in a memorandum to his colleagues said—;
We are, and mean to remain, a Christian, people.1237 The same words would, I believe, express the mind of the Minister of Education But can this shifting and nebulous religion, without law or standard, be an effectual barrier against the inroad of secularism? Look at the United States. They began with an undenominational system, with simple Bible reading, without comment, the Lord's Prayer, and a hymn. The question was raised whether the reading of the Bible without comment was sectarian teaching. It was taken to the High Court of Winsconsin in 1890, and it was decided that it was sectarian, and could not, therefore, be given out of public money under the State constitution. That judgment, as far as I can make out, has affected other States. The reading of the Bible is being dropped in most of the States. [MINISTERIAL Cries of "No, no."] Well, allow me to read you a passage from an article by President Murray Butler of Columbia University. He is speaking not of the moral and religious loss which has been sustained in America—;and I do not wish to measure that; indeed it is difficult to measure the loss which you sustain by not reading the Bible or the gain you obtain by reading it—;he is referring to the effect: on literary training arising from the disuse of Bible reading—;To the average student the first Book of Paradise Lost is an enigma. The epithets, the allusions, even many of the proper names are unfamiliar. This is due to ignorance of the Bible.To the English-speaking race, moreover, the loss of the Bible in the schools means far more than it would mean to any other civilised people. The Bible is wrought into the very texture of their thought and speech; it colours all their literature; above all, it is the chief source from which they draw their spiritual life. I merely wish to point out the far-reaching consequences of such a change, and my point is that our common religion and our common culture are bound up closely together. Secularism appears to me to be the goal and not the remote goal of this Bill. What is happening in America, would happen with us; and it is to be observed that any people that has gone the way of secularism has never been able to retrace its steps. If we desire, as I believe we all desire, to save religions education in England, we must make provision for it in a 1238 larger and more tolerant spirit than that of this Bill. It must rest on another and more national basis than the Dissidence of Dissent. We must not blindly ignore the actual facts of religious life in England. We must give up all attempts to coerce consciences. Children must be brought up in the faith of their parents; parents must be allowed to exercise their rights, whether they live in town or country; teachers must be sought who by knowledge and conviction are competent to teach the subjects they profess; and religion itself must not be treated as an unimportant extra in a school course, for if it is made an accident of the school it will also surely become an accident of life.
§ MR. RENDALL (Gloucestershire, Thornbury)In add essing a few words to the House, on the very important Bill which is now under discussion, I should like to say one word with regard to the speech to which we have just listened with so much pleasure. I am bound to say that, speaking for myself, I do not think that hon. Members on this side of the House want to be lectured by hon. Members on the other side as to the value of the Bible. It seems to me that if anybody wants to be lectured upon the importance of the Bible, and upon the importance of its not being made the subject of political controversy, it is the late Prime Minister, who by his Act of 1902, threw the Bible into the cauldron of public controversy and dispute. I would like to say in reference to letters which have appeared in The Times from various bishops and members of the lesser clergy, that they have rated the Liberal Party rather soundly, because they have said that they have a mandate in regard to the question of education as produced in the Bill. With regard to that mandate, I will only say that I think every single hon. Member on this side for a long period dealt with that question. For myself, during a long candidature of three years, the one great and overwhelming subject of discussion was the education question. It was that question which, during the first years of the campaign against the late Government, aroused the interest of the electorate 1239 as it had not been aroused before for ten or twenty years. If you went into the village, you found the population there were determined to get rid of what they regarded to be the grossest tyranny. This determination was altogether independent of the Act of 1902, and before it was passed there was a strong feeling among the intelligent and independent electorate in the villages that there ought not to be one school only belonging to one sect which gave the religious instruction of that sect to the exclusion of all others. Hon. Members repr ach us as to what they describe as the setting aside of trust deeds, but may I say that it was their own proposal to allow all the children to go into the schools in violation of these trust deeds. Then hon. Members talk of confiscation, but may I remind the House that the Church of England lives and moves and has its being in confiscated churches. Which are its churches? They are confiscated churches. Which are its trusts? They are the trusts of another Church which was reformed. Therefore, when the Church of England talks about confiscation and breach of trusts it is putting itself in a lamentably weak position. In regard to the management of the village schools as carried out under the Act of 1902, I think all parties are agreed that the dual control must be got rid of, but I think it well that some argument should be produced in this House to show those who doubt the necessity of abolishing it why it should be abolished. There is the well-known example of Mildenhall where, in a body which contains the parson's brother-in-law and his sister, the appointment of the clergyman to the post of local correspondent was moved by himself, seconded by his sister, voted for by the latter and his brother-in-law and carried by the casting vote of the chairman who was the parson himself. Such things as this are constantly going on under the Act of 1902, and we are told that they show the glorious neutrality of the Act. The hon. Member for Cambridge University said we ought not to coerce consciences, and suggested that the Bill now under discussion coerced them, but I would ask what about the consciences which have been coerced for generations past and the unfair treat- 1240 ment that has been meted out under the Conscience Clause to hundreds and thousands of people during the last few years? We are told, as the parson said to the people, "You can always use the Conscience Clause and your children can never be proselytised." Yes, but how is this worked? There happens to be a mining village where the Nonconformists resolved to withdraw their children from the school during the time devoted to religious instruction. I expected loud cheers from the parson and an acknowledgment that the Nonconformists were going to work the Act of 1902 fairly. A few months after the withdrawal of the children the school treat came on in that locality, and then the managers of the church school announced that that treat would not be available to any children except those who attended religious instruction. This is the way that the Church treats little children whose parents withdraw them from school under the Conscience Clause. These are things which must be got rid of, and they will be got rid of by the abolition of the dual control. That the Liberal Party have a mandate in regard to the teachers has I think been shown by the elections all over the country and the approval of the teachers, as expressed at their annual meeting, of the course which is to be pursued. With regard to teachers who are denominational, who will be called upon to withdraw denominational teaching from the children, we regret that that is necessary, because we know that they enjoy giving it, but it must be done in the interest of all the teachers who are not denominational teachers, and in the interests of those who will come after them. Permission to teach will mean persuasion, and that persuasion will be all the more powerful because it will create a kind of persuasion which will lead to compulsion, and that compulsion will be illegal. But the compulsion will be there, and we know, especially those of us who represent country districts, that all over England there are education committees which have a large number of clergy and Churchmen upon them, and those committees would be able to find out what a person's religion was if the permisson were given. We say that that should not be allowed, and we also say that there should be some return to the 1241 ad hoc system which we regret was abolished.
And, it being a quarter-past Eight of the clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means under Standing Order No. 8, further Proceeding was postponed without Question put.