§ Mr. T. P. O'CONNORI wish at the outset to express my grateful thanks to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Middleton (Sir R. Adkins) for giving me the opportunity of speaking first on a question which he has so very much at heart, and I will endeavour to limit my observations to the smallest possible dimensions. The question which I wish to bring before the attention of the House is the issue of the recent circular (No. 1,259) from the Board of Education. That circular refers to what are known as the continuation schools. I think the House will agree with me that there is no part of our educational system which ought to be watched with greater solicitude than the continuation schools. These schools are really the first rung in the ladder which will enable clever young men and women, after passing through the elementary schools, to have an opportunity of making themselves fit for higher and more useful places in society.
I regard these continuation schools as a most necessary and a most useful part of the fabric of our educational system. I will not go into the financial details of the circular, and I will leave that part of the subject in the much more competent hands of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Middleton. I will, however, summarise its effects. It shifts the financial burden of continuation schools from the taxes to the rates of the country, and I think it is almost the universal opinion that this is a most disastrous move so far as continuation schools are concerned. I speak on this question not 1930 merely on behalf of the religious community which I represent, but also on behalf of expert and independent opinion. I represent the unanimous opinion also of my own city of Liverpool on this subject.
We have in Liverpool an education authority which is composed of the representatives of all the religious communions and the political schools of the city. I am proud to say that nobody can assert that religious opinion is not very robust in Liverpool, and sometimes it is very demonstrative. I am glad to say that the Education Committee in Liverpool has been able to conduct its schools with conspicuous fairness. This body is concerned not merely with provided schools, but also with non-provided schools, and therefore I think the verdict, of such a body as this ought to carry great weight both with the Board of Education and with this House.
What is the position? The continuation schools are conducted, on the whole, with great efficiency and at great sacrifice. The point is, how are they to meet this threatened diminution of their resources? They will have to meet it either by means of the rates, or else by increased fees, and that is impossible having regard to the class, of children with whom they have to deal because they cannot afford to pay higher fees. Another method suggested is higher donations, but in this matter we have reached almost the breaking point of the generosity of those who give donations. I find that at Liverpool alone there are six of these continuation schools, four of them Catholic and two of them Church of England, and altogether they provide for 2,817 boys and girls. Let me say quite frankly and at once that I speak with the same zeal on behalf of the Anglican schools as I do of the Catholic schools. I think their case to a large extent is the same and their claim is equally well justified. This suggestion in the Circular of the Board of Education is supported on the ground of economy. When the right hon. Gentleman talks of economy in connection with non-provided schools, I wonder he does not feel a little ashamed of himself. As a matter of fact, a non-provided school is the greatest guarantee we have in this country for economy in our educational system. The State is saved a large amount of the expenditure which is involved in the provided schools. 1931 The buildings are supplied by the community who send their children to the non-provided schools, and, in the case of the Catholic schools in particular, a great deal of economy is effected by the splendid self-sacrifice of the persons who conduct these schools. In Liverpool, for instance, the continuation schools are in the hands of the Jesuit Order, of the Christian Brothers, and of the nuns.
The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of EDUCATION (Mr. Herbert Lewis)The hon. Gentleman speaks of the "continuation schools." I presume he means the "secondary schools"?
§ Mr. O'CONNORI thank my hon. Friend for correcting that lapsus linguæ on my part. These schools are conducted by the Jesuits, by the Christian Brothers, and by the nuns. The Jesuits in St. Francis Xavier School exhibit the great efficiency of their Order. The Christian Brothers are an excellent Irish Order which has done incalculable service to the cause of education in Ireland, and, as to the nuns, everybody knows the work that they have done for education. However much men may differ as to the Catholic system, no one will deny that these bodies of men and women are a very fine example of the sacrifice of the individual to the common good. They make immense sacrifices. They sacrifice family life and the pursuit of wealth, and these great self-sacrifices should be recognised even by the members of communities that do not agree either with their faith or their system. The result is that you find these school teachers with salaries that are merely nominal. For instance, I take the St. Francis Xaviers School. There are four heads of the education department, all Jesuits. Three of them have Oxford degrees, and the principal has a London degree. What are the salaries these gentleman take, not for themselves, of course, but. for their Order? The head teacher has £150 a year, and the other three teachers have £100 each.
The non-provided schools in the country, and specially the Catholic schools, provide one of the most extraordinary examples of religious inequality that the world shows to-day. I give, as an example, the contrast between these remunerations and what takes place across 1932 the road at what is called the Liverpool College Council School. I do not say it is too much, but there the head teacher has £1,600 a year. Take another example. There is a secondary school called the Seafield Convent School. Last year the Lancashire County Council, an admirable body, gave £6,000 to the Merchant Taylors Boys' School, £3,500 to the Merchant Taylors Girls' School, and £300 to the Seafield Convent School at Great Crosby. That is a strange form of religious inequality in education. The part that the secondary school plays in the life of my own people is very great, and I hope in time that it will be greater. The Irish as a race have always been remarkable for their love of education. They were really the first great teachers of Christian Europe. Owing to the particular Irish conditions under which the Irish came to this country after the devastating influence of the famine in Ireland, a great many of them were driven to the hardest work and lowest paid occupations of the country, and, though I am proud to be able to say that the Irish as a race have made enormous advances in other parts, the advance among the Irish in Great Britain whom I represent has been extremely slow and unsatisfactory.