BOARD OF EDUCATION.

HC Deb 13 July 1911 vol 28 cc595-619

Postponed Proceeding resumed on Question Proposed on consideration of Question, "That a sum, not exceeding £9,125,442 be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on 31st March, 1912, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Board of Education, and of the various Establishments connected therewith, including sundry Grants in Aid." [Note.—£5,250,000 has been voted on account.]

Which Question was, "That Item A (1) be reduced by £100 in respect of the salary of the President."—[Mr. Goldstone.]

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT

In the remarks which I had to address to the House on this subject I had already dealt to a large extent with the facts relating to the school known as the Wheelwright Grammar School, near Dewsbury. I had referred to that school as an instance, only an instance, of the way in which the Board of Education had connived at direct breaches of the law. I was dealing with the question as to whether the Board of Education had any right to arrogate to itself the position to which Parliament alone in our constitution is entitled to assume, namely, that of deciding broad questions of public policy upon which the parties in the country and in this House are deeply divided. I had referred to the instance of the secondary school regulations as an instance where the Board of Education had assumed to itself the power to determine a question of high policy. I said the Board of Education had not limited itself merely to cases where it might possibly contend that it was within the letter of the law in deciding a question of policy on which, as I say, this country is divided, but had gone further than that, and had attempted when Parliament had refused to endorse that policy to push that policy at its own instance, by means legal or illegal, in the administration of the Department with which the right hon. Gentleman the President is concerned. This case of the Dewsbury school (the Wheelwright school) is a critical case and a crucial case on this question, because in that case the right hon. Gentleman deliberately, and we will assume after consideration, decided to support the local education authority in its breach of the law rather than to perform its own duty of maintaining the trust of the school in accordance with the express terms of the Endowed Schools Act, under which alone the Board had jurisdiction.

I pointed to the history of this school which from the early part of the eighteenth century had been a Church of England school, and a Church of England school under the will of the founder. I pointed out that under the various schemes for altering the constitution of the trust under which the school was administered that on each alteration, and there had been two, the Church of England character of the school had been maintained, and had been maintained, not only in fact but under an express promise by the Charity Commissioners, the predecessors in title of the Board of Education, that that character of the school should be maintained. Not only that, but in 1900, when the foundation of the school was amalgamated with certain other schools, one of which was controlled by the Dewsbury Town Council, the Dewsbury Town Council themselves gave a similar undertaking as a condition of the consent of the governing body of the school to the change, that the Church of England character of the school should always be maintained. Under those circumstances it was, that subsequent to the passing of the 1902 Act, the local education authority, the West Rifling County Council, refused to give a grant to the school unless the school agreed to become undenominational in character. In order to appreciate the question with which I am dealing, namely, the conduct of the Board of Education in the matter, it is important for the Committee to hear the wording of the Act of Parliament which the Board of Education were called on to see was duly administered. Section 4 of the Education Act provides that

"A Council (that is the local education authority) in the application of money under this part of the Act, shall not require that any particular form of religious instruction or worship or any religious catechism or formulary, which is distinctive of any particular religious denomination, shall or shall not be taught, used, or practiced in any school, college, or hostel, aided, but not provided by the Council."

That is the condition upon which the exercise of their powers and their duties depends under the Act. Section 2 of the Act provides:—

"The local education authority shall consider the educational needs of their area and take such steps as seem to them desirable, after consultation with the Board of Education, to supply or aid the supply of education other than elementary."

which is secondary education. Under that Act the local education authority was under an obligation to give a grant. The Board of Governors of the school applied to the Board of Education and appealed to the local education authority to give that grant. The answer of the Board of Education came in a letter which I can quote. It was sent on 15th June, 1908, when the right hon. Gentleman was in charge of the Board. The answer of the Board of Education was not to compel the local authority, was not even to write a letter to the local authority urging them to obey the Act, but, on the contrary, to make a scheme which was inconsistent with the foundation which they had under their powers as Charity Commissioners, or successors of the Charity Commissioners, to protect, and which, under the circumstances, was a breach of their own duty. I ask the Committee to consider that, and to say whether the policy of having denominational schools as an integral part of our system is a right or wrong policy, that it is a matter which Parliament alone can decide, and the Board of Education has no right, by regulations or by any other adminis- trative measures, to determine that the one policy or the other policy is the right policy, and that it is not for a Department of State to initiate a policy upon which the parties of the country are deeply divided. It is for Parliament and for Parliament alone. In that respect I am at one with the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Goldstone) in criticising the departmental conduct of the Board of Education. I say that that instance and the instance of the regulations are on the same footing in this respect. In each the Board of Education has assumed to itself powers which our constitution does not give it. It is an instance of the bureaucratic government which we all deplore, and which on both sides we are agreed in saying ought not to be entrusted to departments of State. It is an infringement of the powers of Parliament. It is an infringement of the power of control of this House over questions of policy which we say, in the highest interests of the nation, ought not to be permitted to any department of State. It is for that reason I ask the Committee not to talk this Motion out, but to allow it to go to a Division. We have a high and important question of policy upon which there is a majority against the right hon. Gentleman's view. The Member for South Kerry (Mr. Boland) spoke to-night on exactly the same lines as those on which I have addressed the Committee. He spoke in the same way in 1907 when he said that the secondary school regulations were a declaration of war. They were a declaration of war, and they were avowed to be such by the right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, who said that he was going to use the sword. If the Irish party tonight vote in accordance with their genuine religious convictions and in accordance with the convictions of the great majority of the people of Ireland who send them here, they will vote in support of the Motion to reduce the right hon. Gentleman's salary. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to allow this Motion to go to a Division in order that we may see whether the party below the Gangway on this side will vote in accordance with their convictions and support the voluntary schools of this country.

Mr. KING

Is the hon. Member entitled to say the same sentence again and again? He has repeated this sentence at least four times in my hearing.

The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN

That is a matter for the Chair to watch.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT

I am indebted to my ingenuous Friend on the other side.

Mr. KING

You are trying to talk it out yourself.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT

If the hon. Member thinks that he is meeting the convenience of the Committee by interfering in this frivolous way when a serious question is under discussion—

Mr. KING rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question he now put," but the Deputy-Chairman withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.

Mr. LESLIE SCOTT

It is a serious question whether the Government are going to allow this Motion to go to a Division or not. If they do we shall know whether the Irish party will support their convictions in the Lobby by voting in favour of the Motion.

Sir GEORGE WHITE

The hon. Member (Mr. Leslie Scott) has cautioned us against talking this question out, but he has certainly done his best to accomplish that object himself. I do not intend to occupy the time of the Committee at anything like the length he has seen fit to do. As to the treatment of denominational schools by my right hon. Friend, I am not going to follow the hon. Member in the cases he has brought forward, but I think I can see quite enough in the last case to understand, without knowing anything about the details, that it concerns one of those obsolete endowments which would be of little service to the day in which we live, and that the Charity Commissioners and the Board of Education have dealt with it in a way that is for the best interests of the present generation. But while my right hon. Friend gets charges of partiality from the side represented by the hon. Member opposite, he is not free from charges on this side; therefore I conclude that he holds a fairly even hand between the conflicting claims of the various, parties connected with education

I heard with a great deal of pleasure the speech of the right hon. Member for Oxford University (Sir W. Anson). I have heard many speeches from him, but I do not think I ever heard one with which, on the whole, I more entirely agreed. There are one or two of his statements, however, upon which I desire to remark. I think he rather misrepresented the position of my right hon. Friend with regard to the salaries of secondary school assistants. He seemed to imagine that my right hon. Friend desires to take something off the salaries of the head masters and to distribute it amongst the staff. I did not gather that that was the idea of my right hon. Friend at all. I understood that he was drawing a comparison between the two to show that there was a disparity which ought not to exist, and that the idea was rather to level up so far as the assistants were concerned than to level down the salaries of the head masters. The right hon. Baronet also desired to know what was intended by a "democratic body of governors" for our secondary schools. It is that a large proportion of the governors of our secondary schools shall be men chosen from the local education authorities, who have been elected by the ratepayers of the district which they represent. I am quite sure that in following that policy my right hon. Friend is pursuing a line of action which will be most conducive to the maintenance and spread of secondary education. It may be true that on the city and town councils there is not a very large sprinkling of university men, but if these authorities are not fit to find governors of secondary schools, they are not fit authorities to manage the educational system of the country. I am quite sure that in getting on our governing bodies such governors as may represent the higher education committee of the city or borough council we shall be getting those men who are interested in education and who will be able to form a link between elementary and secondary education in the most successful way.

I do not desire to go further into the question of the Holmes circular. I took very strong exception to the wording of that circular and to the policy which seemed to be at the bottom of it; but I think that enough has been said upon that question. There have been very strong expressions of opinion throughout the country; those expressions of opinion have been conveyed to my right hon. Friend, and I think that now, in the interests of education, we might leave the matter where he has left it. So far as concerns any committee or commission for dealing with questions of patronage or the maintenance of a Civil Service generally, or the action of some of the permanent Civil servants, I am not at all opposed to it; but I do not think it should be directed to the Board of Education alone. I believe that whatever faults may exist in connection with our permanent Civil servants that they do not apply with any greater force to the Board of Education than they do to other great bodies of administrators. So long as the inquiry asked for would cover the whole of our Civil Service administration I should certainly not be against it. I think there are many things to inquire into which might with advantage be unravelled by such a commission. So far as directing it wholly and solely against the Board of Education—well, I certainly would not be a party to it on those lines. I confess to the one little matter which my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham referred to, and in which I have been as great a sinner as the Board of Education—if it is a sin. That is the charge he has brought against my right hon. Friend for using the term "trained" and "untrained" teachers. I have been forty years dealing with educational matters, and I confess I have used these phrases constantly, and heard them used constantly, without the slightest check, or without any idea that any aspersion was, by using the term "untrained," being cast upon those who had not had the good fortune to be trained. If my hon. Friend is correct, I have no desire to use that term if it is treated as a term of offence. But, as an old educationist, it is the first time I have ever heard it challenged. Therefore I do not think it should be brought in as a charge against my right hon. Friend.

In the very comprehensive speech with which my right hon. Friend opened this Debate there were many things upon which I am sure the House congratulates him. Personally, I congratulate him upon the results of his action in connection with the removal, or I should say the establishment of a "conscience clause," in connection with our training colleges. I am very glad that he can bear testimony from the heads of these colleges that the classes of religionists admitted into them manage to live on very friendly and happy terms, to get on together, and to make progress in connection with their educational work. I only wish the right hon. Gentleman could extend that same principle a little further in connection with our elementary schools. Then, I think, he would have accomplished a very great work. My right hon. Friend began at the top of the ladder, at our universities. He walked downwards until he came to the elementary. In the few further remarks that I have to make I desire to begin in the other direction, that is at the bottom of the ladder, and name one or two things that I should be very glad to have some informa- tion upon. Some years ago there was a very important inquiry instituted as to the way in which school children were employed at arduous work out of school hours. Some very important revelations were made. Many of us who sat upon those inquiries were horrified to find the amount of real, arduous labour done by children out of school hours. I have not yet heard that anything drastic has been done by way of remedy, and I fear those blots still remain. It is one of the matters which I think the Board of Education should give prompt attention to, because it is quite certain that children cannot attend schools for the regulation hours and then do, as many of them were doing, practically a day's work out of school.

10.0 P.M.

But one of the principal things that I desire to ask my right hon. Friend is to take the Committee into his confidence, and give us a little more definite information in regard to the policy of the Department upon higher elementary schools. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Oxford University referred to this matter. I believe it is one of the questions that is affecting our educational position in a very serious way at the present time. There are many thousands of children less in our schools over fourteen years of age than there were seven or eight years ago. Part of this no doubt is to be accounted for by the fact that some of them have been drafted into our secondary schools. But it is a direct consequence undoubtedly of the abolition of the higher grade schools. I do feel that to complete our educational system we have got to put something in the place of these higher grade schools, which were practically higher elementary schools. In the first place there were many boys and girls attending that class of school whose parents could not pay the fees of the secondary schools. Many of the boys and girls could not profit by the secondary school education that they really were able to get there even with the large number of scholarships which the municipalities are giving. There is still, however, in my judgment, a very considerable gap, and the boys and girls are leaving our schools at exactly fourteen years of age, for unfortunately there is too little regard in many circles to the benefits of education. Even if the boy has not got any employment to go to when he becomes fourteen he is removed from school.

There are many other parents who would be very glad to keep their boys and girls at school, say for another year, who are not able or willing to send them to the secondary schools. If they could see any advantage in the curriculum of the higher elementary school I believe the boys and girls would at least get a year's longer schooling. In a school of the sort I have indicated we might, I think, under proper management, take the morning for literary work, and the afternoon for practical manual work or something of that kind by which the boys and the girls would have practically half their time in the last year or so spent in fitting themselves for those occupations which they intended to go to. I believe we might make our education much more practical in that way. I know in our elementary schools a great many most able educationists have come to the conclusion that it is not wise to specialise for boys and girls under fourteen. But if in the higher elementary schools they could be kept for a year or two the specialisation so far as industries and occupations are concerned might very well be brought in for at least hall the day.

I do feel that we let slip at a most important time a very large number of these boys and girls who were in our elementary-schools for a longer time than they are at present. May I give an illustration from my own district, an example of a school which is probably known to my right hon. Friend? This school gives an elementary education of a fairly liberal type, and a little wider curriculum than is usually taught in the ordinary elementary school, with a staff that is of a somewhat higher type. That school was doing very excellent work. It is a fee-paying school, but 25 per cent. of the children are allowed in on free scholarships. The managers of that school have a conviction that the inspector is entirely opposed to the carrying on of that school, because one or two subjects are taught in it which are not usually found in an elementary school. I think that is a great misfortune. You cannot force these children into the secondary schools. It would do them no service or good, and, therefore, if the parents are willing to continue them for another year or two, surely it is in the interest of the Board of Education to allow them to have that opportunity. If I may-offer a word of criticism as to the general policy of the Board, I think it is that they put too strong pressure upon non-essentials, I am entirely with the Board in endeavouring to have proper schools and proper appliances of all kinds, but what occurs to one in many instances is that under the administration of the Board non-essentials are elevated into principles of great importance, and work is stopped because authority cannot be got for things which are absolutely non-essential. I desire, therefore, to learn what the policy of the Board is in regard to this higher elementary education.

In my own city of Norwich we have in the last few years opened there a fine secondary school for 600 boys, and we have transferred into what was a high-grade school, and afterwards a municipal secondary school, as many boys as would go, but they have all to be charged 6d. fee, and a considerable number of the boys in consequence could not be transferred, and they have left the supervision of the educational authority altogether without, I am afraid, any means of using even their leisure hours for their advantage. I hope therefore that what I consider an absolute gap in our present education system may be tided over by a more general admission of the principle in our higher elementary schools. The same thing, to a certain extent, applies to our technical school work. We have hard-and-fast rules laid down with which it is very awkward to comply. A lad leaves school at fifteen; he has not yet made up his mind or his parents have not made up their minds what he is going to turn to in the way of employment, so that for a while he is practically idle. He would attend a day class, but having no school and not belonged to any work, he is disqualified from attending a class, and if a certain number of lads do not attend a class the whole class is disqualified.

I put it to my right hon. Friend whether there is anything essentially wrong in having a class in a technical school, all the members of which do not technically come within the scope of grant-earning scholars? If the educational authority is willing that these lads should get the advantage of such class without earning grants, why should the Board disqualify the whole class and simply decline to give any grants because some are not eligible? Why could not the grant be paid for certain individual scholars? I know more than one case in which a considerable number of classes have been practically forbidden because they could not be wholly formed upon lines which the Board of Education would recognise. I do not want to take up an undue portion of the limited time of the Com- mittee, and I therefore forbear from making any further remarks except to say that whilst I make these criticisms I am bound to say the speech which the right hon. Gentleman delivered shows that ho is extremely active in his work, and that the Board of Education is doing what it can to promote educational progress in this country of ours, and I am quite sure if the right hon. Gentleman would have a little less red tape about some of the regulations of the Board, and would give the local officials who are generally well educated men a little more discretion in the conduct of their work, and a little more liberty in the way in which they carry on the education in the localities in which they reside, he would be able in another year or two to report much further progress.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS

I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without calling the attention of the Committee and the President of the Board of Education to the case of the Swansea school. Two years ago I raised this question in this House, and largely in consequence of the Debate and of the attitude of the President of the Board certain proceedings were taken by the managers of the Swansea school which resulted in a series of decisions of such importance as to raise the question in. Swansea from what was a local squabble to a matter of real importance, because the courts laid it down that in their opinion the Board of Education should act in a certain way. I desire to ask the President to-night if he will give the Committee an assurance that in full, re the Board will act upon the interpretation which the courts have placed upon their duties and will carry out their administrative work as far as falls within the decision of the Swansea case in what the courts called a judicial spirit.

I do not propose to-night to be in any way bellicose. [An HON. MEMBER: "Oh."] The hon. Member opposite was not in the House when the Swansea case was discussed two years ago. The case at that time led to very bitter feeling, but I am glad to think these feelings have to a large extent been assuaged. So far as the newspaper report tell us, I believe I am right in saying that the local authority in Swansea is prepared to loyally abide by the decision of the court, and I think it is an open secret that they have been so advised by the Board of Education. I gather from the public Press that they have been told that it is the duty of the local education authority to carry out the decisions of the courts of law. This is the first opportunity we have had in the House of calling attention to the decision of these courts, and I feel one must do so in order to obtain some kind of acquiescence in them from the President of the Board of Education. I will not trouble the Committee with all the facts and details of the Swansea case. Those who were in the House at the time will remember it was a very difficult question arising out of the staffing of a Church school in Swansea whose teachers were undoubtedly underpaid by the local education authority. [An HON. MEMBER: ''And by the Church."] The local education authority were underpaying the teachers, and the whole question was whether the local education authority were treating the church school in the same way as the council school.

Mr. KING

Would the hon. Gentleman tell us what salaries were paid to the teachers by the Church before the Act of 1902 came into force?

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS

I must ask the hon. Gentleman to allow me shortly to put the facts which were fully before the House two years ago, and if the hon. Gentleman will refer to the speech made by myself and by other hon. Members at the time, he will find the answer to all his questions. The object of the Act of 1902 was to give further financial support to voluntary schools, and to place teachers in voluntary schools upon an equal footing with teachers in council schools. In 1908 the Swansea managers complained that the local authority would not pay the same rates as were paid in the council schools. It will be within the recollection of the Committee that the right hon. Gentleman sent down a Commissioner—Mr. Justice Hamilton—to ascertain the facts, and that Commissioner, having heard the evidence in Swansea, and having gone fully into the whole question, reported to the President that he was definitely and entirely in favour of the managers' contention that the school was not maintained and kept efficient, and that there was no ground for preferential treatment in favour of the teachers in council schools as against the voluntary schools in Swansea. That was the definite report of the Commissioner sent down by the Board of Education. The Board afterwards saw fit to ignore that report.

We commented very strongly upon that attitude at the time. The Board ignored that report, said they were not bound by it legally, although I think they were morally bound by it. We asked the President why he had arrived at the decision to overthrow the report of Mr. Justice Hamilton, and he replied that the Government took the advice of the Attorney-General, who said that as a matter of law they were bound not to follow that decision. I think the Prime Minister said that the advice was that they could not possibly follow the decision of Mr. Justice Hamilton. That being so, the managers decided to apply to the courts of law to ask them to quash the decision of the President of the Board of Education, not merely because his decision was wrong on the facts, but because it was so perverse as not to be a real decision at all. They could not, when they got before the court, merely argue that the President's decision was wrong, there being no appeal in the ordinary sense from the Board's decision, and were therefore, for technical reasons, obliged to argue that the decision was so wrong as not to be a decision at all. The President, in his discretion, appealed from court to court until no less than eleven judges took part in the decisions on the Swansea case. I suppose it was within his right, but it delayed the final decision and greatly increased the costs. The courts have been unanimous up to the very highest court of appeal, and throughout they have upheld the decision of Mr. Commissioner Hamilton, and have said that the decision of the Board of Education ignoring the decision of their own Commissioner and giving preferential treatment to the council schools in Swansea was so perverse as not to be a real decision at all.

I do not want to rub in to-night the word "perverse," because it is upon the main principle those judges laid down that I want to invoke the acquiescence of the President to-night. There were certain broad aspects of those judgments which I want to call attention to. When the Government were pressed on the point in this House it was stated that this was a matter of law. As soon as they got before the courts of law the legal advisers of the Crown said it was not a question of law, but a question of fact. I think the reason for this was because, when pleading before a common sense tribunal like the House of Commons, they knew they could not substantiate the question of fact, while before the courts of law they knew the case was so bad legally that they could not substantiate the Jaw, and therefore they tried to get the court to say this was a mere question of fact, and that therefore the courts could not interfere. These judges laid down certain definite principles. They were as follows:—The Board's power to determine questions is not an arbitrary but a judicial power. That is the first great charter the judges have laid down in connection with this question, and I hope I shall have the acquiescence of the President now in this great principle that the Board's power is not arbitrary, but judicial and must be exercised as such, and must not be used to help political friends and to hurt political foes. Then the judges went on to say the Board are not entitled to give an inferior standard of maintenance to voluntary schools because they do not like them. The Master of the Rolls said:— They are not entitled to differentiate between voluntary and council schools as such. That is what we have been pleading for for many years—practically a charter for voluntary schools. It is possible many Members of this House do not like voluntary schools, but voluntary schools are, under our Acts of Parliament, part and parcel of the educational system of the country. If you can alter the Act of Parliament, you may alter the position of voluntary schools, but while they remain on the Statute Book it is the duty not merely of us but of the Board of Education and all its officers to treat them as part of the law of the land. I want to call attention to two quotations from a very eminent Member of His Majesty's Government, and I am going to ask the Committee and the President to agree with one and not with the other. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1903, when he was in a position of less responsibility and a great deal more freedom, said the Education Act of 1902 was a hopeless Act, and— if the county councils in England did what the county councils of Wales meant to do it would be a dead letter. That was the position the right hon. Gentleman took up in 1903 with regard to an Act of Parliament, but in 1910 he took up a different attitude with regard to another Act of Parliament. When some unfortunate Tories went to the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year with regard to the Land Taxes under the Budget, he read them rather a lesson as to the duty of everybody to obey Acts of Parliament. On Sep- tember 14th, 1910, in reply to a deputation at the Treasury, he said the Land Taxes were part of the law of the land.

Mr. BOOTH

On a point of Order. May I ask whether we are entitled to discuss the Land Taxes of the Budget?

The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Emmott)

We cannot discuss the Land Taxes of the Budget, because that is a question of legislation.

Mr. JOYNSON-HICKS

I am not in the least discussing the Land Taxes. I will, if the hon. Member likes, leave out the exact Taxes or law to which the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred. He was referring to an Act of Parliament, and he goes on to say:— It is the duty of every law-abiding citizen to obey a law as part of the laws of the land, because, if we only conform to such laws as suit us and defy those which we dislike, we shall find ourselves on the high road to anarchy. Well, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was very far on the high road to anarchy in 1903, when he invited his friends in Wales to make the Act of 1902 "a dead letter." I assume he has now changed his views as to the desirability of being on the high road to anarchy. While we are quite willing throughout South Wales to bury the bitterness which has arisen over the Swansea case, I want the right hon. Gentleman to tell us to-night that he assents to the second and not to the first quotation from the Chancellor of the Exchequer; that he accepts loyally, as I believe he intends to do, this decision of the Courts of Law; that his Department in future will do what it has been the pride of all Government Departments to do for many centuries past, and that is administer the laws of the land whatever those laws may be, without fear, without favour, and with equal justice to all sections of the community, whether they like those laws or whether they do not.

Dr. CHAPPLE

Those who have preceded me in this Debate have confined themselves very much to those branches of education which deal with the development and equipment of the mind. I make no apology for endeavouring to direct the attention of the Committee to the development and equipment of the bodies of our school children. We cannot hope to build up a healthy mind except on the foundation of a healthy body. Let me refer first of all to a very valuable report—the Report for 1909 of the chief medical officer of the Board of Education, in which very valuable reference is made to the diseases of school life, a very alarming prevalence being shown of preventible diseases. I find in the report these words:— It may however be stated that in respect of six million children in the public elementary schools of England and Wales, about 10 per cent. suffer from serious defects of vision; 3 to 5 per cent. from defective hearing, 1 to 3 per cent. from suppurating ears, 8 per cent. from adenoids or enlarged tonsils, 24 per cent. from extensive teeth decay, 40 per cent. from unclean heads, 1 per cent. from ringworm, and 1 per cent. from tuberculosis in a readily recognisable form. One per cent. of six million children represents 60,000 children in the schools suffering from tuberculosis in a readily recognisable form, and it is not too much to add another half to one per cent. as suffering from tuberculosis in a form which can only be detected by careful medical examination. In other words some 100,000 children in the elementary schools of England and Wales to-day are suffering from tuberculosis. We cannot expect to do much for its prevention unless we know what are the causes of tuberculosis in our children. If I were to ask a number of laymen who are in the habit of reading the daily Press and keeping themselves well up in questions of social reform—questions that appertain to the social well-being of the people, what are the causes of tuberculosis, in nine cases out of ten they would say it is the germ of tubercle. But the germ of tubercle is not the cause of tuberculosis, if it were all Members of this House, or most of them, would be suffering from the disease. The fact is we have for years, probably from youth upwards, come into contact with the germs of tuberculosis and inhaled or swallowed them, and we are still here, clothed and in our right mind. If the germ of tubercle were the cause of tuberculosis it would be prevalent amongst us, but as a matter of fact, the cause, the primary cause, is the susceptibility of the individual, owing to his or her devitalised or non-resisting tissues, which are unable to resist the invasion of the tubercle bacillus. If this is the primary cause it must alter the whole of our views as to the prevention of the disease, because instead of sweeping up the germs we will cultivate resistance in the bodies of these children and develop their tissues, so that they may be able to resist the invasion of the bacillus. In order to do that one must establish a whole system of physical education for school-children, so as to equip them for the fight against disease. After all, health is a victory and disease is a defeat, and these large numbers of school-children—100,000—who are suffering from consumption are-suffering in the first instance from weakened constitutions and debilitated tissue cells. In fact, the disease is due to low vitality and poor constitution, to the fact that the constitution is lacking in that vitality which constitutes health, and its power of resistance has been overcome by the power of the bacillus.

I want to suggest what are the preventive means which we will have to adopt for the children of public schools. In nearly all cases the disease of phthisis starts in the apices, because the children have never been physically trained and have never gone through the exercises which are necessary to develop these parts of the lungs which form the nidus of tuberculosis. Not one case in 500 starts in any other part than in the apices, the tops, the extreme tops of these conical organs. Therefore we must look for a system of physical training which will develop those parts of the lungs. That is the best way to deal with the alarming prevalence of the disease which this Report shows. One complaint I have to make against sanatoria is that they treat the disease only after it is established.

Mr. BOOTH

On a point of Order. Is the hon. Member making a speech on the sanatoria Clause of the Insurance Bill?

The CHAIRMAN

I do not think he is doing that, but I do think he is not confining himself to educational matters.

Dr. CHAPPLE

I am confining myself to the physical development of school children, and I am endeavouring to show that unless you follow a system of physical training in the schools which will fight the disease which is so very prevalent, you will not prevent it. There is one exercise which is an ideal exercise as an anti-phthisical exercise, and that is swimming. In every public school swimmings baths should be established wherever it is. possible. Practically that would do more to prevent the prevalence of tuberculosis, and especially phthisis, than any other training which you can adopt. Swimming is an anti-phthisical exercise for the simple reason that it develops the parts of the lungs in which consumption almost invariably starts. This report complains about the lack of cleanliness in school children, and it re commends that shower and spray baths should be established in our schools. Such a method would be an entire waste of money. Baths are disliked by children, and one of the most important attributes of an exercise is that it should be attractive. I should like to draw a distinction between baths which constitute a body "wash and swimming, which constitutes an exercise. If you establish a swimming bath you have both, and you fulfil the condition that the medical officer of health recommends. You have all that cleanliness demands, and at the same time you would have an attractive exercise. In those schools where swimming baths are established children go to them spontaneously. They do not require to be driven there. You require to drive a child to an ordinary cold shower bath. Nor do you require teachers for a swimming bath. Children learn to swim spontaneously if you give them plenty of water. If you throw them into shallow water often enough you will soon discover, to your amazement, that they become adept swimmers. If these swimming baths are established, from twenty to fifty or one hundred children can get in at once. On a football field there are only twenty-two playing—the others are looking on—and on a cricket field there are only twelve or fourteen playing. You are using a large and costly area of ground for the physical development of about a dozen men. If you spend your money in a rational way I suggest you get physical development and uniform development—not the arms and legs only, but development of the whole body uniformly. I am advocating a very important reform which has been neglected too long, and the degeneracy of our children to-day is the result of the neglect of those fundamental principles of physical development which long years ago this country ought to have undertaken. The degeneracy in our slums is amazing. The military authorities cannot find enough well developed men to fight for their country. It is due to the fact that our children are huddled in hovels. All the fundamental laws of hygiene, public health, and physical development are neglected. It is the duty of the Education Department to lay itself out to spend its money rationally in providing these cheap and economic ways of systematic physical development which can only be done by recognising those principles, and undertaking the work with determination.

There is another very important consideration. In an island country with a great mercantile marine like ours, apart from all the advantages of physical development, of health, and of the development of those powers which enables us to resist and overcome disease, and on these we should concentrate all our attention, the very fact of being able to swim is a virtue in itself. I took out the figures a little while ago of the number of cases of drowning in this country. They are enormous—over 3,000 per annum. More than one-half the cases of drowning that occur annually could be prevented if children were taught to swim, so that the reform which I am inviting the Board to undertake would be justified if it equipped people for being able to act in this particular emergency, apart from the other advantages. I want to say in conclusion that the evidence of disease in our school children is alarming, and is not on the decrease. It is a matter of common observation by those who have travelled in distant parts of the Empire that you do not find the undersized and undeveloped frames which you find in the populous parts of London and of the industrial centres in the United Kingdom. It is possible to lessen the amount of money you will have to spend upon sickness insurance and sanatoria by getting at the fountain head of these defects and diseases. Unless we start with the children, and make it a matter of urgent public importance to deal with degeneracy and with those who are suffering from disease and make use for this purpose of the valuable inspection of school children which has been instituted by the Board, we will fail utterly to develop the sound and healthy constitutions which we have a right to expect among the people of this country.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Trevelyan)

I have delayed as long as possible rising to make any sort of reply to the criticisms that have been made in the course of the Debate, and in view of the short time I have at my disposal I am afraid I must deal straight away with the Amendment which is really before the Committee, namely, the reduction of the President's salary, which has been moved by an hon. Member on this side of the House. I note that the criticisms from this side of the House, although they were milder than those which have been made outside, yet tried to establish the proposition, that the Department at the present time is doing nothing right, that it is stirring up a state of class war, and that in various ways it is blocking progress. That is an entirely new attitude taken up by hon. Members on this side of the House. If you compare the criticisms made to-day with those of the last few years, you will find that none of these things were formerly discovered at all. I would like to say first of all that no one regrets more than my right hon. Friend and myself that the Holmes Circular was published. I am not making that statement in the sense of objecting to the row that has been made. After all, in administration and in the rough and tumble work of politics misfortunes will occur to politicians, but what I mean is that we are extremely sorry that an entirely false impression has been created by that publication, and above all I say with the utmost genuineness that we are deeply sorry at the effect it has had on the feelings of teachers, and at the soreness which was quite naturally created in their minds. I think we have done in the circumstances everything that could be done. The circular has been withdrawn. My right hon. Friend has stated over and over again that it does not represent the policy of the Board, and I do not think there is really one who heard his speech who would say that he has not shown that it does not represent the policy of the Board.

But the real question that the House has to decide in regard to this circular is whether it is a symptom, as my hon. Friends the Member for Nottingham (Sir J. Yoxall) and the Member for Sunder-land (Mr. Goldstone) would assert, or whether it is an exception. What we maintain is that the whole course of our administration at the Board shows that it was the exception and not the symptom. In his vigorous and eloquent speech the hon. Member for Sunderland tried to establish a certain number of concrete complaints against the Board, which he thought illustrated the policy of the Board. I should like to take one or two of these cases. He mentioned the case of a teacher at a new training college at Sunderland who had been removed from his position owing to the action of the Board of Education. It is really impossible, in the House, to discuss a question as to whether a man is competent or not. I went into the case extremely thoroughly. I knew the man myself, and would stretch a point in his favour, but I came to the conclusion that we had to take the action which we did take; and I should have thought that the comparative rarity with which we take such drastic action in a case which required that, in the interests of the school, the man should cease to be a master, is really an argument that we do not adopt such a course without very great reason.

My hon. Friend spoke of the case of the Todmorden secondary school, which hitherto has been a free secondary school, in the West Riding. I could not quite understand what his point against us was. The facts are these: It is the West Riding authority that is now trying to require fees to be paid at the Todmorden school. I do not at this moment say anything as to whether the West Riding authority are right or wrong, but it is they, and not we, who are asking that fees should be paid for this school, where hitherto the people of Todmorden had been able to get free secondary education. So far from our being responsible, there is a deputation coming up to see my right hon. Friend next week to ask him if he can take action, and certainly until he has seen that deputation it would not be right to say anything about it at all. My hon. Friend cited another case which is still more curiously illustrative of what I must say is the rather careless way in which accusations have been brought against the present administration of the Board. He cited a case in which he said the Board had advised that a three-guinea fee should be charged instead of a much lower one. It is quite true that the Board did write to say that they considered that, except in very special circumstances, a fee of not less than £3 per annum should be imposed. But when did they write it? They wrote it on 10th November, 1904, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford University (Sir W. Anson) was responsible for the affairs of the Board.

Mr. GOLDSTONE

This was illustrative of the continuity of policy which had gone through the Board, and not merely since the present President had come into office.

Mr. TREVELYAN

I will deal with that. I will take the hon. Gentleman on his own argument, in respect of continuity in this case, that before this Government had taken office it was suggested by the Board that this fee of £3 per annum should be imposed. As a matter of fact—

Sir W. ANSON

What is the name of the school?

Mr. TREVELYAN

The Bolton Secondary School. I am only pointing out that it was under the regime of the right hon. Gentleman. The final arrangement come to did not result in that fee being imposed. The Board did not insist on its view, even under the regime of the right hon. Gentleman. But now I come to the action of the Board under our administration. The only dealings we have had with that school have been to require that instead of charging a weekly fee, they should charge a terminal fee on the ground that it would check capricious or premature removal. If the parent pays a terminal fee he is less willing to take the child away than if he paid a weekly fee. Now I come to the accusation of continuity of policy. In February, 1911, the local authority asked our approval for raising the fee to two guineas a term for the older pupils. The Board refused approval of the demand. I do not think there is very much in that complaint. I do not think my hon. Friend has substantiated any of the cases he has brought forward as to the class action of the Board. I do want those of my hon. Friends who are critical of the action of my right hon. Friend to judge of him not merely by the Holmes circular but by his general policy. I say in the face of his record it is impossible to charge the Department with class prejudice, stagnation or reaction. I have no time to go over the record of what my right hon. Friend has done for elementary education; but he has reduced the size of the classes, raised the standard of staffing of the schools, and insisted on better buildings.

Sir G. DOUGHTY

And increased the ratepayers' charges without finding any money.

Mr. TREVELYAN

I have not time to go into that, but my critical friends are perfectly aware of what my right hon. Friend has done. I ask them to remember the facts and the acts which he has done and set them against the words of the Holmes Circular with which the acts do not correspond. The real central myth of all this agitation was that the Civil Service of the Board of Education was upper class. All those who heard my right hon. Friend know that that is no longer the case. They cannot have heard him describe the origin of the selection of examiners and inspectors without feeling that it can no longer be said that the way is barred to elementary school teachers, to people of humble origin, and to those who come from the elementary schools. Even the hon. Member for Sunderland feels that, for he fell back upon his denunciation of the Board. I quote his words, that for inspectors we must have a man who has been under the harrow.

Mr. GOLDSTONE

Under the harrow to the extent that the inspector, not himself, be inspected.

Mr. TREVELYAN

Yes, exactly. I quite agree that the teachers must have their chance of being made inspectors, but the hon. Member is raising a different question. He is beginning to say that only teachers should be inspectors. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO, no."] He is going perilously near that. That is not, I quite frankly say, the policy of the Board. Our policy is to open them for all. [An HON MEMBER: "Promotion from the ranks."] Those who listened to the right hon. Gentleman know that promotion from the ranks is open. To my mind one of the worst dangers to the people, to the democracy, and to progressive legislation is that there should be a campaign in this country against obtaining for the Civil Service men who have the highest education wherever they come from. I do not believe there is really very much difference between us and my hon. Friend. Surely the line he advocates is this, to widen the universities in the country as far as possible to all classes of people. As it is, people of humble origin are now carrying away most of the prizes in the universities. Somebody doubts that. The other day I took up a paper with the announcement of the Mathematical Tripos in Cambridge, and I found in the first class out of fifty-six men only eleven came from what we may call the upper-class public schools—

Mr. GOLDSTONE rose in his place and claimed to move "That the Question be now put," but the Chairman withheld his assent, and declined then to put the question.

Mr. TREVELYAN

I do ask the Committee to judge my right hon. Friend not by one single unfortunate publication, but by the real value of the whole of his administration, and they can judge it from their knowledge of what he has been doing during the last three years.

Mr. KING

I very much regret we cannot have two days for the discussion of this subject.

Mr. GOLDSTONE rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put,'' but the Chairman withheld his assent, and declined then to put the Question.

Mr. KING

I feel it my duty to say a word or two upon this miserable Holmes circular, though I may be the means in so doing of preventing the House going to a Division. The Committee would certainly be glad if we could have this matter settled in a satisfactory manner. I must inform the President of the Board, much as I admire his admirable speech and the line that he has taken, and the courageous way in which he has faced his foes on the other side of the House and his foes on the Board of Education too—because I believe he has insidious foes there as well as open foes on the other side of the House—I still say, in spite of everything, that his reply upon this Holmes circular has not satisfied me. I do not believe—

And, it being Eleven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his report to the House.

Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next, 17th instant.