PUBLIC EDUCATION, SCOTLAND.

HC Deb 21 July 1927 vol 209 cc671-712

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a sum, not exceeding £3,833,029, 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 the 31st day of March,1928, for Public Education in Scotland, and for the Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh, including a Grant-in-Aid."—[Note: £2,750,000 has been voted on account.]

Mr. WESTWOOD

I want to express my very great disappointment that, despite all the deputations that have met the Secretary of State and all the conferences that have been held, we have not yet been able to influence the Scottish Office in the way of trying to help us out of the difficulty we are faced with. I put a question to the Secretary of State asking for a return as to the total expenditure of local authorities in the mining areas in normal times in the feeding and clothing of necessitous children and the expenditure incurred between 16th May and 31st December, 1926, and the return I received was rather an amazing one. The normal expenditure of these six education authorities who were affected by the expenditure made necessary for the feeding of children because of the mining dispute of 1926—Ayr, Lanark, East Lothian, Midlothian, Stirling, Fife and Clackrnannan—from 16th May, 1925, to 15th May, 1926, only totalled £10,655, but from 16th May to 31st December, 1926, the expenditure incurred by these authorities totalled no less a sum than £141,933. The two authorities I am particularly interested in so far as this expenditure is concerned, Midlothian and Fife, of whose education authority I am still a member, have had a very great expenditure in connection with the feeding of children. Midlothian had an expenditure of £13,914, compared with an expenditure in 1925–6 of only £165; and my own authority of Fife had an expenditure of approximately £76,000 to £79,000. It is with the greatest disappointment that I have to say that we have not been able to influence the Secretary of State or the Department in making some special grant. Not that we have ever desired to change in any way the arrangement whereby the Scottish Education Fund is distributed to the various education authorities, but we were up against exceptional circumstances in 1926–27, and again I want to express my very great disappointment that. despite the abnormal circumstances, despite the very heavy burden these education authorities have had to bear, we have had no help from the Government.

Speaking for my own authority, we only carried out the law. We were compelled to incur this expenditure because the parish councils themselves had refused to accept what I believe were very good instructions so far as the Under-Secretary is concerned. I have no complaint to make in connection with that. They advised the parish councils to do something that they believed was right at that time in the interests of ordinary humanity. The parish councils in many instances absolutely refused to accept these instructions, because they maintained that it was illegal to make the payments. What they maintained was proved to be right in the Courts of this land. Certain payments were made through another fund to this parish council which broke the law at that particular time. As I have said on a previous occasion, it seems to be rather a strange position that, with a Conservative Government in power, you reward those who break the law and you refuse to do anything for those who really keep and maintain the law. I shall leave that question now, as I know that some other hon. Members will deal with the hardships in respect to particular areas.

There are certain questions on education that I desire to put to the Secretary for Scotland. There is the question which I put during the year as to what action the Department were taking for the purpose of submitting to the education authorities—the Department themselves finally approving of it—a scheme of scale of salaries for the headmasters and teachers in our secondary schools. This is a question which is exercising the minds of education authorities and the secondary headmasters and secondary teachers. Very bitter criticism, I think, was levelled against the Departments by the Court that tried a particular case known as Smart v. Perthshire Education Authority. I think that that criticism was not altogether justified, but I anticipated as a result of that criticism that long before this we should have had a definite scheme of scale of salaries in its application to the secondary headmasters and secondary teachers in our schools in Scotland. I should like to know what is being done in that direction, and what mutual arrangement has been come to between the respective education authorities as far as the payments of secondary headmasters and secondary teachers is concerned.

In the very interesting report issued by the Education Department, I find, on page 27, a reference to the exchange of teachers between this country and the Colonies and the Dominions. That is a question which ought to exercise the minds of the education authorities more than it is doing at the present time. Most powerful work can be done from the educational point of view and from the Empire point of view in the exchange of Scottish teachers for teachers in the Dominions and in the Colonies. Only a very brief reference is made to what, I believe, is an interesting experiment, and one which will ultimately be of great good from the educational point of view. On page 27 of the Report of the Committee of the Council of Education in Scotland are these words: The temporary exchanges of posts between teachers in Scotland and teachers in the Dominions which are arranged under the scheme launched by the Imperial Education Conference of 1923 appear to be increasing in number. During the year under revision 17 exchanges were reported to the Department. I want to make a special appeal to the Secretary of State for Scotland and to the Education Department to encourage the education authorities in Scotland, in so far as they possibly can, to make the necessary arrangements for the maximum number of exchanges, so that we can get the benefit of these Colonial teachers, and so that our Colonies and Dominions can get the benefit of the teachers who are trained and who are teaching in our country at the present time.

The next question I want to raise is one which has been exercising the mind of the Executive and of the education authorities in particular. Under a very old Act of Parliament—of 1883, I think—Section 11 (b), no parent is really compelled to send a child to school or under obligation to provide education for the child if the child is outside a three-miles limit of a publicly-controlled school. The Dumbartonshire Education Authority, who were actually prepared to pay the travelling expenses of a child who was outside the three-miles limit, had to contend with the obstinacy of the parent, who, obviously, was trying to make a claim that they should build a school at his particular door instead of making arrangements to convey his child to the school door. The Sheriff in the Dumbartonshire Court was satisfied, as the Act said, that the parent had the right to refuse to send his child to school because he was outside the three-miles limit. That position might have been all right when there were no transport facilities and when there were no education authorities prepared to make the necessary provision for the conveyance of such children to school. But I submit, where the education authorities make provision to convey children to school who are outside the three-miles limit, the provisions of this old Act ought not to be considered a legitimate excuse for not sending those children to school. I know that as a result of our discussions with the Department, and as a result of our discussions inside the Executive of the education authorities a promise has been made by the Department, and, I understand, by the Secretary of State for Scotland, very seriously and favourably to consider the proposed amendment of the existing law in order to get the education authorities out of the difficulties in which they find themselves at the present time. I should like to know what action the Department are prepared to take now in connection with that particular case, because, although the case was taken to the higher Court, the higher Court, as far as I understand, simply confirmed the decision of the lower Court. We can do nothing as education authorities, if parents object to send children to school who are outside the three-miles limit, but allow the children to run wild.

I wish to raise two most important questions affecting us in Scotland at the present time. We have made some improvement in organisation and administration during the last three or four years in particular, but there is still one class of people for which no proper provision is being made in our schools. I refer to the over-age pupils—the type of children who may be normal, but who, because of the circumstances of their parents, may have been removed from district to district and have had no real opportunity for receiving the same education as children whose parents have been in ordinary occupation and have been resident in one district practically during the whole of their children's school life. Some amazing figures are provided in this Report to which I have already referred—figures dealing with the number of children who, reaching 14 years of age, have not passed the qualifying examination and have not received any form of advanced or secondary education. I think the number is approximately 37,000–37,000 who left school at the first leaving age after 14 years of age and who have not reached the stage beyond the senior division. I think it is a waste of effort on the part of teachers, and it is not providing the right type of education when they are kept in a class, for instance, where children of 10 or 11 years of age have reached the same stage of education. Our teachers are doing their best, and the ratepayers and the nation are spending money on the provision of a kind of education from which such children are unable to benefit.

The claim I make, so far as these particular children are concerned, is that when they reach the age of 12½years or 13 years, instead of being kept in the senior division in the school, they should be sent up to the advanced division central schools, not to receive the advanced education there but to receive the practical and manual instruction which is provided in these schools, education by hand and eye, by which they can benefit themselves, instead of wasting the time of the teachers in the senior division in the elementary schools and really keeping back the progress of other children in the same classes. The Secretary of State and the Department should press upon education authorities in Scotland the need for centralising all pupils beyond a given age, say 13, in these advanced division courses, or in the secondary schools if they are going on with their secondary education. The point I want to emphasise is this, that you make provision for the supervising the health of the child, for the training of the child and the control of the child, up to the age of 14 years, but you make no provision for the years between 14 and 16. After 16 the young person, if employed, will come under the National Health Insurance Act and, if unemployed, under the unemployment schemes, but for the period between 14 and 16 years of age no provision is made for the control of children who leave school at the age of 14 and who find no employment.

From a return given by the Secretary for Mines in reply to a question in the House I find that between 1921–2 and 1925–6 no less than 457,299 children left our schools, and there are hundreds and thousands of those children who have not yet found work. It is one of the greatest tragedies of the life of our nation that young persons of 14 should be leaving school without any prospects of employment, should be going about our streets without any control, and no arrangements made for their education, except the continuation classes, of which, unfortunately, only a few of our pupils take advantage. This is one of the problems we have to deal with in connection with national education administration. Surely something can be done. I understand that one of the recommendations of the special Committee which was set up by the Secretary of State to inquire into the relationship between education and the employment of young persons is that no child shall be allowed to leave school at 14 years of age unless he or she can produce a certificate that he or she is going to employment. I know the difficulties in connection with this. It would be most difficult for education authorities to prepare proper schemes and most difficult to carry them through, and I think the best way would be for the Secretary of State to exercise the powers he has, fix an appointed day, raise the age to 15, and give full power to education authorities, in cases of necessity, to make an adequate maintenance allowance. It would be far better to pay 5s. a week, 7s. 6d. or 10s. a week in maintenance allowance between the ages of 14 and 15 to those children whose parents require such assistance rather than allow the mass of our children to leave school without any provision being made for them in any shape or form.

If we could raise the school age to 15 years of age it would make the problem far easier, so far as educational administration is concerned. In many instances children enter for the three years' course in our advanced schools, but whenever they can get provided with work at 14 years of age, although you have the necessary organisation and a proper scheme of education to allow them every chance of gaining a higher school certificate, they leave this education course. Consequently you have wasted part of the efforts of the staff, the money of the ratepayers, and a part of the national expenditure. By raising the age to 15 you will enable 90 per cent. of those who enter for the three years' course to get the full benefit of that instruction rather than the limited number who now receive that benefit. If we can provide the money necessary for cruisers we can provide the money necessary to provide maintenance grants and allow the children to get the three years' education in the advanced division course. There is one other question I desire to refer to. Despite the appeals of last year, and the year before, we have still nobody in Scotland who is directly responsible for agricultural education. You have still the two bodies. There is the Board of Agriculture, and if we ask for any assistance in connection with special schemes for agricultural training they tell us that they cannot help us. Then there is the Education Department. They have not complete control in connection with agricultural education. I think the time has arrived when education in Scotland, whether it is general education or agricultural education, ought to be under the control of one authority, and that authority ought to be the Scottish Board of Education.

I should like to see special schemes for training young persons in agricultural matters. I know the orthodox education administration talks about giving a rural bias in connection with rural education. I want to see the rural bias given in connection with the education of the urban population. It would be a wise policy, so far as Scottish educational administration is concerned, if we spent some money in training young persons between the ages of 14 and 16 years in our urban areas on agricultural subjects; giving them an agricultural training and bias. The tragedy of Scottish rural life is that the very type of individual you want to keep on the land, the agricultural labourer, is the very type who emigrates. We make no special provisions for training the child of the miner, or the engineer, or the general worker, in our urban areas in these rural subjects, This would be a real benefit to the nation, because if we still have to face the emigration of the agricultural labourer, it would give the agricultural districts a call on a trained, or partly trained, youth in our nation, who would know more about agricultural problems than they do at the present time. These are the chief points I want to put before the Committee. We have ideals in connection with education. There are many of us on these benches who have had very limited opportunities for education. I left school at 13 because they would not let me leave at 12, and I am determined that my children and my children's children shall at least have better opportunities for education than their parents or their grandparents.

Education, a good education, gets out of the child all that is best in the child. It should develop all the finer characteristics and attributes of the pupil. The only way to do that effectually is by reducing the size of classes. From a return giving the size of classes I find that while there are only six authorities in Scotland which have classes exceeding 60, there are a very large number of these classes under the Glasgow education authority. It is a tragedy that this should be so in Glasgow, with all its wealth. Glasgow claims that it pays its teachers more than any other authority, but it is making those payments at the expense of the teachers, because if you give a teacher a class of more than 60 children, it means that you are not doing justice either to the teacher or the pupil. In Glasgow, at the present time, there are 20 classes with more than 60 pupils, and more than 1,000 classes with between 50 and 60 pupils each. With classes as large as that you cannot get the best out of your children or your teachers, or get the best return for the money expended.

I know the Department are calling on education authorities to take such steps that in 1928 or 1929 all classes shall be less than 50, and I trust they will speed up that good work, and be as harsh as possible so far as Glasgow is concerned. It has all the wealth that is necessary to build new schools, and there can be no real objection to reducing the size of the classes. I have met their administrators and I know that they put forward all kinds of objections against reducing the size of the classes, but I have never heard one really sensible reason given. In our schemes of education and our methods of organisation and administration we ought to try to draw out the best that is in the children and to develop all the best characteristics of our race; teaching the children to be self-reliant, teaching them the spirit of independence, teaching them initiative and, above all things, teaching them that in the future they are going to be the citizens of this country and will have to think for themselves and weigh up the problems of life for themselves; and these things they can only do if we give them the best education possible.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. R. W. SMITH

I would like to stress the point which has been put to the Secretary of State for Scotland as to the importance of giving a rural bias to the education in industrial centres. That ought to be seriously considered by the Department, because in my opinion it would help us to solve many of our difficulties with regard to finding employment for our people. It is a point which I have made before, and I would like to emphasise it to-night. I rose, however, to address the Committee on another point, and in this connection I would remark that I notice that the Opposition always claim that they represent the working class and that we, on this side, do not. Why they should make such a claim I do not understand, because I feel that we on this side as truly voice the views of the people of the country as they do. To-night I want to voice the feeling of a large number of people in my constituency, and not only in my constituency but throughout Scotland, that we are not getting the best results out of our education system. There is a strong feeling that in view of the money we are spending—it is something like £10,000,000 in Scotland this year—the results ought to be better, and I want to suggest how the Department might use its weight in order to improve conditions.

What we suffer from is the failure to concentrate on improving the primary schools of the country. We hear a great deal, especially from the Opposition side, about secondary education, higher education and continuation classes, but the cause of the primary schools is largely overlooked. It is no use pleading for secondary education and continuation classes unless we give our children the best education possible from the moment they come to school. They must be put on the right lines at the start, otherwise they will not be able to benefit by the instruction provided in the higher divisions. I think that is the most important thing we have to do in our schools. In this connection I would appeal for smaller classes. In my view the need for smaller classes is much more urgent in the primary schools than in the secondary schools. I notice from this Report that in the primary schools the average number of children is 36 per class, in the secondary schools the average is 25, and in the special classes it is 18. It would be more to the advantage of the country if the average were 18 or 20 in the lower classes of the primary schools, so that children might receive more individual attention at the outset of their school life, in order to put them on the right road. The highest paid teachers are nearly always found in the higher schools, and in a way that is natural; but more ought to be done for the primary school teachers. We need the very best teaching we can procure for our children; it needs a highly skilled person to teach small children properly.

Another point brought out by this Report is that the reason why we are not getting the best return for our money is, largely, the failure to give sufficient attention to practical forms of training. There is too much academic training, and we need more of a practical bias in our teaching. Another point is that the subjects taught are too numerous, and that there is not enough concentration on one or two subjects. As is stated on page 12 of the Report: Educationally it is better to do a little well than a great deal indifferently or badly. I am afraid that many things in connection with education are indifferently or badly done. In the first place we want fewer subjects and we want them better done. It has been pointed out on page 11 and page 7 of the Report that there are too many different subjects and the tendency is towards academic subjects rather than practical subjects. I hope the Secretary for Scotland will consider these criticisms. Why do we not have more of these practical subjects? I think the teaching profession attaches far too much weight to academic subjects in their training of the children. I think the teachers themselves are trained far too much in this direction, and they receive far too much academic training to enable them to give a sound practical training to the children.

Another point of view I would like to impress upon hon. Members is the necessity of the parents taking a greater interest in the education of their children. I have the greatest admiration for the teaching profession, and they do a most noble work, but I am not quite sure that they all realise that the parents ought to be brought in to the scheme of education. The teachers are rather too apt to consider that once a child goes to school the parents should be put on one side, and I think that is a very serious thing. I heard a speech delivered the other day by the headmaster of a large preparatory school dealing with the question of education, and he said that the one thing he appealed to parents to remember was that it was impossible for the schoolmaster to train children successfully unless the parents collaborated with him in his work. Under our present educational system the parents are not allowed enough latitude in this direction, and the teachers think that the parents ought not to be allowed to do anything in this direction. I think the future success of our educational system depends very largely upon the extent to which parents co-operate with the education authorities.

The whole trouble has been that recently there has been a tendency to take away the power of the parents over their children to encourage them to take an interest in their education. If a little more power was given to the parents I think we should very soon find that they would be only too pleased to co-operate with the teachers in order to see what would be the best policy for educating the children. At the present time, when parents suggest a more or less practical form of training, the teachers are apt to turn round and say: "You are not doing the best for your child, and you are not giving him all the advantages which our system offers; you compel your child to go into industry too soon instead of joining some higher profession."

Consequently, the parents feel that they do not want to stand in the way of the education of their children, and they decide that the teachers are better able to judge in regard to this matter. I am sure that policy is not always the best for the children, and it would be much better if the teachers would co-operate more with the parents. In that way I think education would be very much improved, and the large amount of money we are spending on education would be used to a better advantage. On these points I appeal to the Education Department because the matter rests in their hands. They have the power to carry out these suggestions in many ways without any further legislation, and I know I should be out of order in suggesting legislation at this point. I do feel, however, that under the present Education Acts in Scotland more could be done to improve our primary education, and if we can put more efforts into that branch of education, I am sure we should find that the superstructure of secondary education would be much more improved and would ultimately be more for the benefit of the people of Scotland.

Mr. COWAN

The hon. Member for Peebles (Mr. Westwood) with his wide knowledge of administration in educational matters has put before the Committee some questions which call for early and serious consideration. I was particularly interested in the speech to which we have just listened from the hon. Member for Central Aberdeen (Mr. Smith) who has had a very considerable experience of educational matters in Scotland. No one has any objection to a system which secures the greatest possible improvement in our elementary schools, but at the very best elementary schools can only give very little help in the direction of qualifying children to face the problems of life at the age of 14.

There are one or two aspects of the educational problem in Scotland which I will put before the Committee and which I suggest for the consideration of the Education Department. It was with very special pleasure that I heard the announcement by the Secretary of State for Scotland that he intended to put into operation to a certain extent the principle of a reduction in the number attending the classes. That will entail some alteration in regard to the provision of accommodation, and I am afraid that certain local authorities will not be able to meet their obligations as regards accommodation. Nevertheless, I hope there will be no slackening on the part of the Department in reference to those authorities in default making every possible preparation.

With regard to the question of the raising of the school age, I do not think that very much preparation will be required. I think that on this particular question in recent years, there has been an almost unprecedented change in public opinion with regard to the necessity of raising the school age and this applies not only to the industrial side but more particularly to the social and the educational side. We already possess a most extended franchise, and we propose to extend it still further. Do the Members of this Committee think that young girls leaving school at 14 without having had any opportunity of studying political questions are fully qualified to exercise the franchise? I think that the policy of the Education Department ought to be something like the policy which was adumbrated by the President of the Board of Education who said that he had asked the various authorities in England to make a survey as to the necessities of the case before the proposal to raise the school age is carried out. With regard to primary education I am somewhat at variance with the hon. Member for Aberdeen and Kincardine Central (Mr. R. W. Smith) because I think that the work of our elementary schools is as good as it can be made under existing circumstances. In some cases the circumstances are not favourable and the buildings are not favourable.

Mr. BUCHANAN

They are shocking.

Mr. COWAN

The classes are too large, and the teachers in many cases are overworked, and the conditions undermine their health. Those conditions cannot lead to good results. On the whole, I think we in Scotland have reason to be proud of our elementary schools. That is a matter of common agreement. It would be a slur on the good name of Scotland, with all its proud educational traditions, if its elementary schools to-day were not reasonably proficient. It may be said, with regard to educational matters in Scotland, that differences of opinion arise only on two occasions, firstly, when some part of the existing machinery or curriculum is scrapped, and secondly, when some new proposal is introduced. The latest educational innovation has been the introduction of the advanced division. I must apologise to Members of the Committee if from time to time I have to use rather technical terms of that sort, and I may explain that the advanced division is meant to give something in the nature of a parallel course and an equally useful course, in relation to what used to be called the pure secondary course. It is considered that there are pupils for whom a classical or language course is not the best possible course, and the idea of the advanced division is to provide a parallel course, not necessarily an inferior course, but one which will better suit the aptitude of the particular child concerned. We have only two sources of information on the progress of educational matters in Scotland. The first is in the Reports of His Majesty's Inspectors, and the second is in the opinions of the teachers as expressed at their meetings. At the present time, the advanced division is upon its trial, and we must see that there is nothing shoddy about it, and that it is, in its way, as real an educational tendency as the secondary course hitherto has been.

There is one matter on which I think the people of Scotland have no reason to pride themselves. If I understand aright, there are no exemptions from school attendance under the age of 14 in England, but in Scotland, we have, in many parts, exemptions at the age of 11 or 12, particularly in the North of Scotland. I trust that the Department will exercise a restraining influence upon the authorities who indulge in that practice. If I may now turn to what is, in one sense, a more cheerful subject, namely, the training of teachers, I wish to say that we find in the most informative and interesting Report issued by the Education Department, that the number of graduates is increasing. There will be this year a larger number of graduates issuing from the training colleges than has ever been the case. Not only is that a very promising symptom of educational progress, but it gives an opportunity to the Department for considering certain other questions. In view of the surplus of teachers which we are having this year, it might now be possible to lengthen the course of training. The requirements of to-day are much greater than the requirements of yesterday, and, if Scotland is to keep its place in the van of educational progress, it is absolutely necessary that we should have the most highly qualified teachers. It is a rather extraordinary thing that all the teachers who go into training colleges every year—and there are many hundreds of them—seem to be about perfect when they enter. Unlike almost any other profession, in the case of the teaching profession there is scarcely one who fails to come out as a fully qualified teacher; and I ask the Department to consider whether we are not allowing some to pass through our training colleges who are not fully qualified to enter our schools and instruct our children.

I do not wish to take up more time than I can fairly claim, but there is another point arising out of the training of teachers to which I would direct attention. The teachers have already some representation upon the provincial committees under whom the training colleges are carried on. The work of the training colleges is purely on the side of that training which will best fit the teacher for his or her work. It has nothing to do with the finance of education, or the emoluments of the teacher. I think it would be a very valuable element in the composition of the provincial committees if there was some increase in the representation of the teaching profession, so that it might amount to something like one-third, or at least one-fourth of the total membership of each committee. Another matter which does not come directly under the purview of the Secretary of State, as head of the Scottish Education Department, might also be mentioned. The right hon. Gentleman, being also head of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, might find it possible to secure for the teachers representation upon the advisory committees which have to deal with the teaching of agriculture in our schools. In the Department's Report I find regret expressed that agriculture is not receiving the attention which it might receive. It may or may not be that this is a case of cause and effect, as between the representation or non-representation of teachers on the advisory bodies. I think some representation of this kind, either through the authorities under the Act or by making some small alteration in the Act itself, would strengthen the position of these advisory committees and bring into them some people with particular knowledge of the schools.

The Secretary of State for Scotland might also use his influence with another Department in regard to a point about teachers' pensions. Some of the older teachers tell me that their pensions are still of a very meagre amount, and that they find it rather difficult to make ends meet when the instalments of the pension are paid only once a quarter. They would like the Secretary of State to make some representation to the Paymaster-General as to the system of payment. It is right that there should be some difference of opinion in regard to policy between the Department responsible for education and outsiders, such as teachers, and those connected with administration, and the ordinary members of the public, but I should like to say, as one who has had a long and close association with the work of education, and a good many communications with the Education Department, that whatever differences of opinion exist there cannot be any question as to the virility and efficiency of that Department. There must be from all who have come in contact with it, an appreciation of the courtesy with which every representation is received.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

I cannot agree with that statement.

Mr. COWAN

It may be that one speaks from one experience, and another from another experience, but I think credit is due to the Department and I say that as one who has differed from them as strongly as any member of this Committee.

Mr. KIDD

I wonder if I can enlist sympathy for the efforts of teachers, particularly in our country board schools, towards inspiring a very much keener interest in athletics than we have had in our school life in Scotland at any time? Every man has his own education subjects on which he believes himself to be a critic. It is treated almost like art in that respect. Rightly or wrongly, I take the view that the whole object of education is to enable us to forget ourselves. The great danger of the present time is that the virility of Scotsmen should be largely lost by the kind of training which makes them brood unduly upon themselves, and gives them an entirely wrong view of what is meant by education. I can conceive no more pathetic figure than the boy who is nourished on this subject and that and who is stuffed with so-called learning very much as a goose is prepared for Christmas, who is regarded at home with the admiration extended only to one who is a kind of marvel and who, as he passes into life, seems to think that the realisation of education should be the discovery of a soft job, or what appears to him to be a soft job, with a biggish salary and perfect security—a good salary to begin with and then the exchanging of that salary for a good pension. The boy who goes into life on that basis and who thinks that he is thereby realising every purpose of education and the whole purpose for which the money on his education was spent, is a most pathetic figure. We want to get back somehow or other to the spirit of adventure.

Only the other night we listened to a very inspiring speech by the Secretary of State for the Dominions. What is the good of our talking about Empire Trade Boards, or links of Empire, or trying to visualise all the possibilities of the British Commonwealth, if here at home we cultivate a type which is lacking in that spirit of adventure which gave us the Empire? For the very spirit which secured the Empire is the spirit which must be maintained in order to retain that Empire. For that reason I want especially to appeal to the Minister to help teachers—and I know of plenty who are doing their best in the country schools—to give the boys the feeling that the perfect boy is not the boy who is best in Latin or French or may have a mastery of Pons asinorum that his neighbour has not got, but the boy who discovers that character is the thing that matters. There is no better agency in promoting the character of the boy than the agency afforded by the rugger field, the soccer field or the cricket field. There are a discipline and a training on this field which are being encouraged by many head masters, and are being splendidly supported by the teachers in the Board schools in many parts of Scotland. I appeal to the Minister to bring before the Department the great advantage from the national and Imperial point of view of the development of character which is thus provided, and, therefore, as far as possible to give if need be material encouragement to those who are trying to inspire that fine spirit.

Mr. HARDIE

The last speaker, if I may say so, has brought up what has always been attendant on any discussion of educational matters. What he was doing is just what all other generations of those who do not think clearly about education have always done. They always say that of course the present generation of boys and girls is always less worthy than those of their generation. That is an absolute hallucination. Why should we have this reflection on the part of parents and an attempt to decry their progeny? I have no doubt at all about the children of the generation we are speaking of now. They are as good as any generation of the past if they get a chance.

I want to deal to-night briefly with the question of education and the gap between the ages of 14 and 16, which is the most serious thing that has to be faced. Education of youth can only be accomplished by continuity. I think that will be agreed by anyone who knows anything about education. The moment you allow a break in the youthful mind, you not only destroy what has been given before the break, but you destroy the whole tendency and desire to acquire knowledge by that youthful mind. That is the most serious thing you have got to face—destroying what was given, and destroying the mental tendency towards the further acquisition of knowledge.

No one can face this question seriously without coming to the conclusion that theme must be no gap. I can see all that might be pictured by despondent minds as resulting from the gap. Surely a Government which claims to be the greatest Government of modern times will realise that education is the real basis of citizenship and when you destroy, by the gap, the basic ideal of the citizen, what do you do? You give an irresponsibility to the child mind between 14 and 16 and then when it comes to 16 you try to put into that mind, when you have destroyed what ought to have been there, a responsibility through the Employment Exchange. We get Members in this House telling how certain boys and girls who, in receipt of money from the Employment Exchange, are handicapped in this direction, and they always forget that the cause of anything that may be wrong is due to the lack of continuity in education. That is my point. I ask the Government to realise that the gap is costing more to the nation in reality than would be the expense of continuation education. We had not long ago in this House the President of the Board of Education seeming to suggest that of course the economic line of demarcation would require to be brought into consideration in determining education and its cost. He was trying to explain that where there were certain pupils who could not be considered as being able to take advantage of real secondary education, a new scheme might be available whereby the supposedly defective child should get to some other school where it would not be a secondary education but some advanced curriculum. What is the use of anyone, especially one who presumes to take charge of education in this country, talking such flat nonsense? Because that is what it amounts to.

Every thinking man and woman knows that although there may be something latent in the mind of a child, not fully developed, children are not of the same mentality at the same age; they develop at different periods and ages. If a child is dull compared with its fellows, that is no reason why it should be given less education, it is a reason why it should be given more and more education. It would seem that the idea of the Minister of Education is that when you find the child not developing along the average, as it is called, in the school, you must still further make it dull, until you make it mentally defective. So far as Scotland is concerned we shall fight against any imposition such as that, and it will be a new method of fighting so far as education is concerned.

Where you allow a gap you destroy the education. One hon. Member, from one of the North of Scotland constituencies, asked the Committee to consider the point of view of the parent. What is the point of view of the average parent in regard to education? The hon. Member raised that question, but he did not answer it. Parents realise that at a certain age a child must go to school. When the child has gone through school, the idea as to what is to be the vocation of the child begins to assert itself in the minds of the teacher and the parent. If it were only an educational point of view, the point of view of the parent—I am speaking from experience derived from interviewing parents—would be one point of view. Every parent would want to see his or her children getting the highest education in the land. What, then, is the use of bringing forward a term such as "the parents' point of view," when you have these facts entering into the parents' points of view? The economic circumstances of the home come in and determine the educational point of view on the practical side. We on these benches know parents who would like to give their sons and daughters a university education, but the earning capacity of the household determines exactly how much or how little education the children are going to get. That, really, is not the parent's point of view, and anyone who dares to introduce at any time the argument that the parents are indifferent, that they have no ideas of education—I speak from long experience in contact with the citizens of Glasgow—is wrong.

I ask the Secretary of State for Scotland to consider what is meant by the gap between the ages of 14 and 16. If you take the school returns of Glasgow, which show the numbers of children who are leaving the schools and then consult the register at the Employment Exchanges, and you take the trouble to ascertain what has happened, you will find out exactly what has taken place in connection with the cases at the Employment Exchange. What has happened in regard to the evening continuation school classes? In the days when a child was assured of work and of being able to attend evening classes, there was a continuity of education, but the same conditions do not obtain to-day, because a break has been allowed to take place. You do not find something for the child to do during the day between the ages of 14 and 16. In that way you break the continuity. I have much more to say, but I will conclude because others wish to speak. There is nothing more serious in our education system than the gap. The highest general education that can be given to a youth makes him more capable to absorb whatever vocational training he is going to get. If we are to remain a great nation we must have the highest general education before we begin vocational training, and if we do that, every vocation will be filled with honour and ability, and with the best possible advantage to the nation.

Mr. W. M. WATSON

The facts of the case which I wish to bring before the notice of the Secretary of State for Scotland are pretty well known to him. He has received deputations on the subject, and I agree with the hon. Member for Peebles (Mr. Westwood) who expressed disappointment that the right hon. Gentleman had not seen his way to meet the Fife Education Authority on the matter. When the industrial trouble began last year there were certain of our local authorities that were expected to do something in order to relieve the distress that was caused by the dispute. The Education authority and the parish councils were charged with that duty during the time that the industrial dispute was in progress. We who belong to the County of Fife have made representations to the Secretary of State for Scotland because we consider that the Fife Education Authority has been badly let down. I do not know exactly by whom.

It will surprise my colleagues from Scotland to know that Fife is evidently going to come out of this matter worse than any other county engaged in that conflict. We are supposed to be fly and to know how to arrange our business, but up to now we have been unable to get the Secretary of State to look at this matter as we see it in the County of Fife. In other counties involved in that conflict the education authorities took up the position that it was not their duty to feed and clothe necessitous children. In these areas the parish councils were compelled, or, at any rate, if they were not compelled, it was looked upon as their duty to perform that particular function, but in the county of Fife certain parish councils refused to feed necessitous children, and the education authorities took on that responsibility in the hope that, before the conflict had gone far, the parish councils would recognise their duty and be prepared to do it. Unfortunately, the months went on, without some of these parish councils making any effort to perform this duty, with the result that in the seven months of that conflict responsibility which should have been on the parish councils was thrown on the shoulders of the Fife Education Authority. It means that our education authority in Fife is saddled with an expenditure of something approaching £79,000, the greater proportion of which ought to have been expended by parish councils.

The way we have been let down is this: If the parish council had shouldered that responsibility, and had made the expenditure, they would have been reimbursed to the extent of 40 per cent. of their expenditure. But because the education authority has taken on its shoulders responsibility for feeding and clothing these children, the ratepayers in our county will have to meet the whole of that bill. That is a very serious matter for the county of Fife, because it is an area in which there has been a considerable amount of unemployment for a considerable period, and where the depression in our leading industries is very great. I do not require to tell the Secretary of State the condition of affairs in our county, because he is familiar with it. It is unfortunate that in the county of Fife the education authority should have been left in that position. It will mean that for years to come ratepayers in that county will have to face the expenditure which they should not have been required to meet, had parish councils taken their responsibility on their shoulders.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Peebles pointed out, there is another anomaly in connection with this matter. The parish councils refused to do what was looked upon as their duty, for it was their duty according to the circular sent from the Scottish Board of Health. The parish councils which refused were really acting within the law, and the parish councils that made the payments to wives and children of those engaged in the conflict were really breaking the law. That is a most extraordinary situation, and the Members of the county of Fife have interviewed the Secretary of State several times, but, up till now, he has been unable to see in what particular direction he can assist us. He says we cannot have money from the education fund, because that would be unfair to other counties. But we replied that we did not care from where the money came, but we considered this expenditure in which our education authority was involved should not be borne by the Fife ratepayers, but should be partly borne by the Government. I think we have a claim to at least a proportion of the £79,000 which is reimbursed to the extent of 40 per cent. That will be given to parish councils in other parts of Scotland. From the Fife point of view, that is a burning question. We regret very much our education authority are bridled in that particular way, because we are particularly pleased with our education authority. We look on them as one of the progressive authorities. They have done a good many things to give a lead in education. I hope even yet the Secretary of State may see his way to be able to assist the education authority in our county.

Mr. BUCHANAN

I want to raise a question which I have been putting for some time, namely, the provision of schools in Glasgow, and the continuation and use of certain schools that should not be continued. The question of the size of classes in Scotland is also a matter I want to raise. Certain figures which the Secretary of State for Scotland gave to me show that the position in Glasgow as compared with any other town in the West of Scotland or any other part of Scotland is alarming. I find that whereas in Edinburgh the average number of children attending classes in the schools is 38, in Glasgow it is 47, while in Perth it is 24, in Dundee 30 and in Aberdeen 39. Glasgow is in a very much worse position comparatively than any other town. I got from the right hon. Gentleman's colleague the President of the Board of Education a set of figures for Leicester, Liverpool and Manchester, and these bear out the same thing, that Glasgow is in a much worse plight as far as attendance at school is concerned than any other town.

The main point I wish to raise is that the whole reason for this is that schools cannot be provided. In other words, there is a shortage of schools. The question is not easy of solution. There is the difficulty of negotiation with other authorities, but surely there is this point that can be taken into consideration. Certain schools are being at present occupied. Take Greenside Street in the South side of Glasgow, which has been the subject of inquiry on many occasions by the Department as a school which might be likened to a slum-house. The London-Glasgow trains pass almost adjacent to it. Political meetings are sometimes held in this school, and even politicians, with all the hubbub of an election, find it difficult to conduct those meetings because of the noise of the trains. It is admitted by every person that the school ought to be abolished. Nobody defends it. In connection with the National Playing Fields Association, certain people met in Scotland last week to try to get more money for the development of playing fields. The school has practically no place for a playground. The playground, which is misnamed, is the public street, in which the Glasgow Corporation, to its credit, has made a smooth pavement. That is really the only place in which the children have to play and, with the development of motor traffic, it is very undesirable that they should do so. Here is a school with practically no playground and, worse than that, with no public park adjacent, the nearest one being between one and two miles away. That renders it almost impossible for the teachers to take their children there. The schoolrooms and the whole building are indefensible, and the Ministry's own inspector has condemned it.

There may be trouble in providing new school accommodation, in view of the demand for houses. It is possible, however, that many of the men who would be employed in building schools are not necessarily the same men who would build the houses. But let that point go. I ask, can nothing be done where schools are very bad, as in the case of the Greenside Street school, and others, at least to provide concrete buildings that could be rapidly put up to tide over the difficulty? Is there nothing that can be done to provide alternative buildings—they might not necessarily be permanent buildings—which at least would take the children away from their present surroundings and give them a better chance? I notice that the Minister of Labour, when he finds it impossible, owing to certain circumstances, to erect an Employment Exchange, provides temporary buildings for the purpose. Those buildings are not all that could be desired, but they are a considerable improvement on those to which the clerks and claimants were going before. If that can be done in regard to the Exchanges, it should not be impossible in the case of slum schools, which are worse than slum Employment Exchanges, where children are not properly cared for, and where there is no playing space at all. In such buildings accommodation could be provided for a year or two, and the children could thus be given decent surroundings. Glasgow seems to be in a worse position than any other place. Negotiations have been going on with the Scottish Education Secretary and the Glasgow Education Authority for years. It is almost hopeless, and nothing seems to be done. The Education Authority are not providing the school, but I am quite certain that if the schools to which I have referred were in the West End of Glasgow they would not be tolerated. There are no slum schools in Dennistoun, Shawlands or Hillhead; there are nothing but up-to-date schools. I ask the Secretary of State, if he cannot overcome this difficulty permanently, to take some steps to close the worst schools and to provide reasonable sanitary accommodation for the children, and so to ensure that the money we are spending on education in these schools is not all wasted.

10.0 p.m.

Mr. DUNCAN GRAHAM

I do not profess to be an expert on this particular subject, but my memory carries me back to the days when I left school. At that time, the conviction was held by quite a large number of people in Scotland and, I believe, by people on this side of the Tweed as well, that Scottish people were very keen on education. My experience was that the people who had control of the industries of the country, of the administration and of the laws were of the opinion that only a certain amount of education was good for the children of the working classes. We, on this side of the Committee, look at the matter from a different standpoint from that of hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side. We believe that our children should get a thorough education, that they should get a university education, and that the State should pay for that education. We are convinced that in the long run that will be a very good investment for the State. We are strongly convinced that our children are as entitled to a good and superior education as are the children of the hon. Gentlemen opposite. I do not know anyone sitting on the other side who would propose to send his boy, at 14 years of age, to work in a coal mine, or his girl into a factory. These hon. Members consider that their children should go on and on at school until they go right through the university. That explains to some extent the point which was in the mind of the hon. Member for Springburn (Mr. Hardie) when he drew attention to the question of continuity. Hon. Members opposite believe that education should be continued until the mind is fully developed. They do not worry whether the boys should be "rugger" players or "soccer" players, or any other kind of players; they want them to be in a position to secure the very best advantages they can in view of the struggle they will have to face when they go out into the world. Our children are very much handicapped—they are handicapped deliberately—by the hon. Gentlemen representing the party of capitalism, who sit largely on the other side of the Committee. Those hon. Gentlemen think that at 14 years of age a youngster should be compelled to leave school. They do not say that he should be compelled to leave, but that the wages of his father should be so low that the parent has no alternative but to send the child to work. When I was a boy, grown men and women believed that it was quite right that their children should go to work at 10 or 11 years of age. They have been got gradually to realise the advantage of an educational career for a somewhat longer period, and now we have reached 14 years of age. The Scottish Education Department—I am sure the English Education Department will be in the same position—are having representations made to them, drawing their attention to the fact that there is no employment for boys and girls at 14 years of age. The bulk of the boys and girls leaving school to-day, in industrial areas particularly, cannot find employment, and are running wild in the streets. Whatever little advantage they had from the education which they received up to 14 years of age is being lost more quickly than it was gained.

I put it to the Secretary for Scotland that the time has come for the Government seriously to consider the wisdom of supplying sufficient money to enable the children to be educated until their 16th or 17th year. I know it will be somewhat difficult to get the Secretary for Scotland to agree. He might agree in theory, he might be sympathetic, and I do not doubt that he is; but behind him there is the Department, which holds up the money, and education cannot be got without money. That seems to create a feeling of unreality in a discussion of this sort, in the present circumstances. If we had any assurance that the Scottish Education Department could get sufficient money, then the will and desire of 99 per cent. of the ordinary working-class population in Scotland—and, I should say, in England—would be that their children should get an education that would develop their qualities to the very fullest extent. The hon. Member for Springburn referred to the question of the dull boy. He referred to the necessity for the dull boy having more attention paid to him than has hitherto been the case. I believe that there is an hon. and distinguished Member of this House who has ventured the opinion that probably the only genius, or one of the only geniuses, that Scotland has produced was Sir Walter Scott. I do not know much about Sir Walter Scott, though I have read that he was an extremely dull boy, but he happened to be born a member of the middle-class. If he had been born a member of the working-class he would not have been a genius. Nobody in this Committee can tell how many geniuses are being lost to this country. Nobody can say how much wealth is being wasted because of the faulty system of education in operation. I am concerned about this matter, because I feel that the custom which is being followed on leaving school at 14 and then not finding employment gets the young people into ways that will not, in the long run, redound to the advantage or the credit of this country.

I think it is the business of the State and this House to approach this question not from partisan standpoint at all, but from the point of view of men who are anxious to do their very best for the generations that are coming up after them. It is no use talking nonsense about the spread of the Empire. Every one of us wants to see the Empire great and good. There is no more desire on the other side to see the Empire expanding both ethically and economically than there is on this side. We can assume that we are all equally anxious on that point, and, surely, the educated girl or boy going out to the Colonies is a very much better investment to the Colonies than one who has not got that education. Surely it would not be to the disadvantage of the State to spend a few million pounds annually in the better training of the young, particularly when we find ourselves unable to provide employment for them.

I do sincerely hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland will take this matter up, not in any partisan way at all, and not merely with the desire of getting something for Scotland that the people of England are not getting. We are arguing for both. We can only deal with Scottish business here to-night, but the claim that is being made for the child of the working man in Scotland is a claim that will be as sound and will be as strongly made from these benches for the child of the working man in England. Money cannot be better spent than in giving our children a better education. Glasgow is not the only place where there is a lack of accommodation. My own county is bad enough, and I think the other countries are bad enough, and in the industrial areas also the school teachers are very considerably cramped in their work. It is impossible for them to do their best, and it is equally impossible for them to get their best from their pupils, largely because there is too much asked from them. I would urge on the Secretary of State the wisdom of trying to get the country to realise that the time has come when some forward move might be made along the lines of extending the age, and of providing the necessary facilities for giving children a very much better education than they have been able to get up to the present.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

I wish to return to the same point that I raised at an earlier stage in this Debate, and that is in regard to the material welfare of the children who attend school. It is apparent, from the evidence that has been adduced to-day, that my colleagues have been better and more humanely dealt with than I was when I was before the Board of Education in Edinburgh. They have praised the treatment meted out to them, whereas I submitted to-day that they were harsh in their treatment of the education authority in Dumbartonshire. I want to appeal to the Secretary of State for Scotland in regard to this specific case. At the moment it has gone, because of the climatic conditions. It is now summer, and it does not matter whether the children going to the school are infants or not, but it matters very considerably that they have to go bare-footed to school in the dead of winter. We have got away from the idea that it was a happy child that went bare-footed in winter time. People used to make our forefathers believe that it was an evidence that the scholars were hardy, and that that was why the children went bare-footed.

My experience, and the experience of all my colleagues and of every member of the working classes, is that bare feet in the winter time mean bare stomachs as well. It is utterly impossible for teachers, no matter how able they may be, and given all the outstanding ability of which Scottish teachers are possessed, to inculcate wisdom into children that are starving. There is no getting away from the fact that children that are going badly shod are going badly red and badly clad. My appeal is this. I want the Secretary of State for Scotland to take time by the forelock and to see to it that the same thing does not occur this winter as happened last winter. There were 700 children going bare-footed to school in the winter time. It is no salve to the conscience of the Secretary of State for Scotland to say that it was not his fault, that it was a "thraw," as we say in Scotland, between the particular authorities whose duty it was to provide the boots. It was his duty, and I said so at the deputation in Edinburgh. He is responsible to this country for the health of the children, and he should see to it that those children are shod. Then he should have seen whose duty it was to pay for the boots. But the children should be attended to first. I hope he will see that the like does not happen again.

It is no fault of the children. My quarrel is with the permanent officials in Scotland at that time. I am sorry to say our experience is that we get far better treatment at headquarters here in London than we do in Edinburgh. The permanent officials tried to suggest that it was only a particular school, and they tried to put it into the mind of the Secretary of State for Scotland that it was a particular colour of religion that was affected; but the deputation, who were not Socialists, who were not even Labour men, were able to prove conclusively to the Secretary of State that it was not confined to one school or to one religion, but that it comprised all, particularly in Clydebank, Dumbarton, and the Vale of Leven—the places where the workers work and where the money is made, but not where the money is retained. I want the Secretary of State to remember that this charge has been made a local charge, handicapping the local people, whereas it should have been made a national charge, because the wealth that is produced in the Valley of the Clyde, as in the case of all industrial centres, is diffused over the whole country, and, when unemployment comes along, the burden should be distributed over the whole nation.

My contention is that we are not asking too much of the Secretary of State for Scotland as far as my constituency is concerned, because there the children will stand comparison with the best in the British Isles as far as sticking to their lessons is concerned, and as far as their parents are concerned in striving and making terrible sacrifices in order that their sons may be better men than their fathers ever will be, in order that their daughters may be better educated than they have ever been. These are the thoughts and ideas which inspire and carry on the women of the working class. I hear a voice coming quietly over the House, saying, "Individual effort." Yes, individual effort, but you see how individual effort is requited. There they are, the mothers, starving—[Interruption.] I know he is an Englishman, but you have to pay attention to him. There you have the mothers of the Scottish boys and girls, who are prepared to starve if necessary in order that their children may get a better chance in life than they have had. No one knows it better than the Secretary of State for Scotland, and, therefore, he should do all that he possibly can. He ought to use all his influence. We are not begging; we are not coming here cap in hand; we believe it is his duty, and we believe it is our duty to stand here and remind him of his duty. He will forget it; he will run away from it. Even Nelson had to draw attention at the Battle of Trafalgar to the fact that England expects that every man this day will do his duty. Therefore, although they squirm, and although those on the benches behind them try to put us down, all that we are doing here is simply doing our duty by the people who sent us here. They sent us here to do this, and no one has any right to stand between us and the Secretary of State for Scotland when we are putting him through it and he does not do his duty.

He knows perfectly well what will happen to the children during this coming winter. I am anxious about the winter that is coming on. We never make provision beforehand, but, when we are in the midst of it, the Secretary of State for Scotland is harassed. Deputations come to him and report that the children are not coming to school, that the inspector has been sent to make inquiries and see why they are not coming to school, and that the inspector has reported to the education authority that it is because the children have not been fed, because they are not clad. I am not exaggerating the case one little bit. These are facts and Facts are chiels that winna ding And daurna be disputed. That being the case, I want to appeal to the Secretary of State to take steps at the earliest possible moment to see to it that the children, not only in my constituency but all over Scotland, will have a guarantee, as far as it is humanly possible in his power, that they will not be kept back from school because their fathers have not the wherewithal to feed them. Think of the wages paid in the shipyards on the Clyde. They are the real explanation of the poverty and misery that exist. We have been speaking of housing and we are now talking of education. It all brings us back to the poverty problem. Here is a people famed the world over for their anxiety to educate their children. It is being made more difficult than ever. It is harder for the mothers to-day to educate and feed their children than it was for the mothers who went before them. That is a terrible thing to say at this time, when there is more wealth and this is a richer country than it has ever been at any other time. On an average 36 shillings a week—

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is getting a little far from the duties and powers of the Secretary of State in the matter of education.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

I have no desire to fall foul of you, Sir. I fell foul of your apprentice, and I would be the last man in the world to make it awkward for anyone who was in the Chair for the first time, though I have done that in my day and generation. I am anxious to get a little concession for dear old Scotland. I should not require to make these appeals to the Secretary of State, because it is his primary business to look after the welfare of the children of the working-class. If you do not have a well educated, well fed, well clad working-class your country is on the downgrade. The reason I am appealing is that I feel that Scotland is on the downgrade.

The CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member must apply himself to something within the power, administratively, of the Secretary of State for Scotland to do. If he can show that the right hon. Gentleman is in fault in some way he is in order in keeping him up to it, but it must be something that is within his power.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

Thanks, Mr. Hope; thank you for the word. It nerves my heart, and steels my soul. The point I am making is, that the Secretary of State for Scotland has the power—he has more power now than he had when he came into office because he is a Secretary of State—to feed those children. That is my point. He has the power, if he cares to exercise it, to clothe those children. That means to put clothes on them, and boots. I was going on to show the inadequacy of the wages that are paid to what is commonly called the labourer, the unskilled labourer. We Socialists do not believe that there is such a thing as unskilled labour. All labour is skilled, and those who do not work are the individuals who are not skilled, and we are not interested in them. I am appealing on behalf of those children, for I know perfectly well—I have it on my conscience—that unless I succeed in wringing some sort of concession from the Secretary of State for Scotland, there will be hundreds, if not thousands, of children who will have to go to school in Scotland during the coming winter without food, without clothing, practically speaking, and with bare feet. The Secretary of State can avoid that, and I ask him if he will give me an assurance that he will do all that his office empowers him to do to safeguard the interests of these children.

Brigadier-General CHARTERIS

I shall not keep the Committee for more than a minute or two. It is always a little difficult to follow the mental processes of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. To-night, I think, even the hon. Gentleman himself must realise that in his speech there was no mental process whatever—at least no logical mental process. The idea at the bottom of his speech seemed to be, that parents were worse placed as regards educational facilities for children than the parents in previous years. But, really, to hear the hon. Member talk, one would imagine that the parents were paving for the education of their children. [Interruption.] Let me assure the hon. Gentleman that education is free to the children to whom he has referred. He talked about boots for children and about leaving their stomachs empty. I understand that the reason for the trouble with regard to boots was due to local trouble between the education authority and the local authority. If the hon. Member would devote his energy and ability to trying to compose these differences, instead of coming here and wasting the time of the Committee, as he has in the remarks he has just made, I think he would be better employed.

In regard to the question of education generally, I agree, and I suppose that all Members of this, Committee agree, that educational facilities ought to be at the disposal of all classes equally, as far as it is possible within the resources of the country. We in Scotland, who are proud of our system of education, realise that while it was the most prized possession of the country a few generations ago, it is not so to-day. It is idle for hon. Members opposite to contend that, generally speaking, it is prized by Scotsmen in the way it was a few generations back. In those days the fathers and mothers of Scotland were indeed doing what the hon. Member for Dumbarton says they are doing to-day; they did indeed starve themselves in order to give their children a good education. We honour them for it. But it is not so now. The education is given by the State, and I say that it is more than questionable whether parents who get the education of their children free to-day value it as much as parents did a generation ago, who had to starve and stint themselves in order to provide it for their children. I do not say that we should go back upon the road, or halt upon the road in our endeavour to keep open all avenues of education to the children of the country. The point is that with a limited amount of money expenditure should not be indiscriminate, but selective. That is a point which hon. Members opposite leave entirely alone, but it is a point upon which I hope we shall get some information from the Government. The hon. Member for Dumbarton in his speech referred to the phrase of Nelson: England expects that every man this day will do his duty. What I am afraid of in Scotland, in regard to education, is that some Scottish men and women are expecting the State to do their duty to their children.

Mr. MAXTON

I have listened to the hon. and gallant Member and I feel rather like saying that it comes very ill from him to rebuke the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) for his illogical processes of thought, because with the best will in the world I have been unable to follow the processes of thought of the hon. Member for Dumfries (Brigadier-General Charteris), and the only reason why I refrain from rebuking him is because it is quite possible when I have sat down he will be unable to follow mine. It behoves us all to walk very humbly in the sight of the Lord and in the sight of the Chair. The class to which the hon. and gallant Member belongs in Scotland was so proud of Scottish education that they invariably sent their sons across the borders to have them educated.

Brigadier-General CHARTERIS

If the hon. Member is referring to me, I may say that I was educated entirely in Scotland.

Mr. MAXTON

I venture to say that the later polish must have been put on in England. We do not produce such results in Scotland. There is a certain rugged grandeur produced by our educational methods which are not produced anywhere else. I do not wish to stand between the Committee and the very adequate reply from the Secretary of State to the various points raised for more than a minute or two, but I want to obtrude on his notice one or two points which have not yet been mentioned. I should like to know whether he can inform the House as to what has taken place in Kincardine with regard to the approach made by the education authorities in that area for permission to pass by-laws enabling farmers to employ children of 10 years of age in agricultural work at certain seasons of the year. As he knows, that is a matter in which I was very much interested, because I was greatly shocked that any education authority should approach him to ask for powers to turn children of 10 years of age out to work in the fields at a time when so many adult agricultural workers are unemployed, and I hope he has refused permission for these by-laws to be put into operation.

He is probably aware that the education authority of the city which he and the Under-Secretary and I all try to represent in our own rather inadequate but different ways has for a year or two now done a very laudable work in arranging for a very large proportion of the poorer children to have a holiday in the country parts of Scotland. The education authority has taken the responsibility of arranging that a certain number of children attending its schools shall get out into a summer holiday camp. The funds raised for that purpose have been raised largely by voluntary effort, which has meant a desperate scramble amongst all sorts of people and the use of all sorts of devices, and while the object to be achieved is a worthy one, and one of which practically everyone approves, the methods by which the money has had to be raised have not met with the approval of all sections of the citizens of Glasgow. I want him to consider whether it is not within his power under present legislation to permit some proportion of the Scottish Education Fund to be devoted to the provision of a summer holiday for those children in city slums schools who are unable to get a holiday by any other means.

He is probably well aware that the City of Glasgow has to take the responsibility for about two-thirds of all the physically-defective children in the whole of Scotland, and about two-thirds, also, of all the mentally-defective children. Such a big proportion of certified physical defectives and of certified mental defectives is a very good indication that a very high percentage of young children are in such social conditions as tend to drive them into the condition of physical or mental defectives. The most valuable function the State can perform it not merely to provide adequate attention for children who have become mentally or physically defective but to take steps, such as the provision of a holiday camp, to prevent any more children from becoming mentally or physically unfit. I would like the right hon. Gentleman to examine his powers to see whether it is not possible for him to recognise expenditure on this object as legitimate expenditure.

Another matter which I wish to raise does not concern solely the education authority, but is one which I understand has to be considered in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour, because the Ministry of Labour provides a big proportion of the money, though the work is actually carried through by the education authority. I am referring to the classes run by juvenile advisory committees for unemployed young people. I understand some of these pupils are sent to these centres by Employment Exchanges, the Unemployment Insurance fund paying 5s. a week as maintenance allowance for any child or young person attending one of these courses. I understand that a certain number come from the parish councils. In reply to a question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan), we were told that there has been a very considerable decrease during the last 12 months in the number of people in attendance at these centres. I agree that, to some extent, the trouble is almost wholly due to the policy of the Ministry of Labour, but I think the Education Department could do something to develop and stimulate attendances at these classes.

I have had an opportunity of seeing the work done at these places. I believe that in those classes we are saving a very large proportion of the intellectual and moral wreckage amongst the adolescents in our big cities, and I would like the Secretary of State for Scotland to give his personal attention to the unemployed adolescent whose only opportunity for education has come through the institution of these classes. I understand that the number of those attending the classes is declining numerically, and I would like the right hon. Gentleman to see if he cannot do something to stimulate the Ministry of Labour to encourage rather than to retard those classes. I notice that the Secretary of State for Scotland does not appear to be so alarmed about the lapse of time as I would like him to be, and I conclude from his attitude that the less time I leave him to reply the happier he will be. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman to give me a figure which is rather incomplete in the Report of the Board of Education, and which I feel quite sure he will have in his possession.

There is a very interesting tabulation showing the decline of births in Scotland, and indicating that even in a few years time within five years from now our school population will be considerably less than it is to-day. The figures are given up to. 1925 and half of 1926. The half for 1926 snows that while in a bad year 1919–20, the number of births in Scotland was 133,900; in 1925–26 it had fallen to 104,000, or a drop of about 30,000 children in the potential school population. In the year 1926, for the half year that is given, we have only got 49,000, and if the other half of the year bears out the figures for the first half of the year, then the total will only be about 100,000 children born in Scotland, which is the lowest figure we have had for a very long time, and this will create a very different situation in our public schools. I would like the Secretary of State for Scotland to deal with those points in his reply, and I apologise for having left the right hon. Gentleman such a very short time to reply.

Sir J. GILMOUR

The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down hinted that I should be glad not to have a great deal of time to reply on this subject. I have always endeavoured to be honest with my colleagues from Scotland, and I confess that I approach this subject of education and the many difficult problems which arise out of it with very great diffidence. I think I should be amply justified in that attitude from the nature of the Debate to which we have listened to-day. I have heard a variety of statements made, some of which, I frankly say, I think are greatly exaggerated. On the one hand, we have been told that Scotland is rapidly declining and falling into a state which, I am sure, we shall all be sorry to see. On the other hand, we have been told that there are many thousands of children in Scotland going barefooted without sufficient clothing and without sufficient food. That there are many difficult problems, and that some of these call for the closest attention from the House of Commons I do not deny. But what is the real truth as to the progress which we are making in education? Whatever our differences of opinion may be as to this or that method of approaching this problem, those who know most about it and who follow it most closely will agree that, even if the progress has not been so rapid, or if some of the difficulties which have been apparent in these post-War years have not been overcome as rapidly as we would wish, yet it is certain that we are making material and satisfactory progress.

Reference has been made to the problem of the size of the classes. That is a problem which has been aggravated by the after-effects of the War. In the city of Glasgow, in which some hon. Members who have spoken to-night are greatly interested, the great problem has been the difficulty of finding sufficient money to build schools and to expand as quickly as we would desire. The suggestion has been made that in order to overcome some of these difficulties temporary buildings might be erected. The policy of the Department has been to endeavour to turn the attention of those who are building new schools, not so much to external decoration and splendid frontages as to the capacity and suitability of the buildings for teaching purposes, and to keep them as economical and plain as possible. It is satisfactory to know that the authorities in Glasgow at the present time are adopting the suggestion of erecting temporary school buildings. In view of the circumstances of a city which is extending so rapidly, and in so many directions as Glasgow, with shifting populations, it is right and proper that such a policy should be adopted. The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) has asked me a question about the fall in the school population. It is quite true that there has been a striking fall—something like 45,000—in the last five years. That has a material bearing when an education authority is taking into its purview the possibility of fresh building operations. I feel constrained to say that while Glasgow presents one of the most difficult problems which we have to face, we are at present pressing that authority to deal with that problem as rapidly as possible. The officers of the Department are, I understand, making a close survey, not of the general scheme, but of individual schemes, and I assure hon. Members who have a particular interest in certain schools, which are admittedly bad and have been condemned for a number of years, that so far as my Department and I are concerned, we shall do everything in our power to expedite the necessary steps for dealing with that question.

Then there is the difficult question of the linking up of rural education with the present school education, and of interesting not only the school teachers and education authorities but the parents and the children themselves in that side of education. I have listened with interest to some of the suggestions made to-night as to how the teachers' interest might be aroused in that problem, and I can assure hon. Members that those suggestions will receive our careful attention. I should like to say that, in so far as co-operation between the school authorities and agricultural colleges is concerned, I think we are making progress, and that we may hope to see a definite development of that work. Then there is the very interesting and, as I think, essential problem of teaching the young people to use their hands in mechanical operations in the schools. That is a side of education which will also not be lost sight of.

Some reference was made by some hon. Members to the problem of playing fields. It is quite certain that the stimulating of interest in the provision of suitable and safe playing grounds for the children in connection with all these schools is a matter of great national importance. At the present time, there is a very interesting movement in connection with the endeavour to get more playing fields, but I am glad to say that, apart from that and purely in connection with the Education Department, we have made in Scotland during the last year very material progress in obtaining suitable playing grounds. The hon. Member for Peebles (Mr. Westwood) asked me what was being done about the exchange of teachers, and stressed the importance, in the view of the teaching profession, of this exchange. There has been in this country quite recently a very important conference, attended by representatives from the Dominions and overseas, who have been discussing with the authorities here at home the difficulties which arise in connection with their problems, and we have been exchanging our views with them, There has been a special committee sitting, and I trust that one of the results which may come out of that will be the stimulation of interest and an increasing exchange of visits and views and experience.

Among other problems which I know interest hon. Members on all sides of the Committee is that of finding some means of carrying on the education of the children a little further than we do at the present time. That is a question which must claim, from time to time, the closest attention of any Government or any party, but I would say to hon. Members on that matter that we must move with some sense of proportion as to the possibility of development. We are reaching now the stage when in 1928 we hope definitely to see a reduction in the size of the classes. That will entail, of course, extension of premises, and no doubt eventually expansion of the teaching staffs, but it seems to me until we have achieved the preliminary steps, it would be folly to attempt to take the larger step, not only for the reason that we have not got the accommodation or the facilities, but because of the fact that if we are going to make that step we must have in our minds very clearly how we are going to develop the kind of teaching that we are going to give to those in the further stages. That has to be most carefully considered and developed before it is possible to take a step which hon. Members in all quarters of the House have very much at heart.

Some questions were asked about the relief to children, particularly in the county of Fife. I happen to belong to that county, and if I could have, in any reasonable measure, met the difficult circumstances which I recognise existed for the education authority in my own county, I should undoubtedly have done so; but I must say quite plainly to the Committee, as I have said to those hon. Members who came on deputations to me, that I can only do things if I feel that I am not inflicting greater difficulties and greater injuries in other parts of the country. Some hon. Members have told me that all they asked for was a special grant. Special grants are so easy to speak of, but I am constrained to say that I think we in Scotland have had our share of special grants, and I do not think that I should have been justified in any way in asking for a further special grant. I very regretfully say that I am unable to meet the demands that have been made upon me.

Mr. MAXTON

Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that Scotland has had more than her fair share of the revenue expended?

Mr. T. KENNEDY

Does the right hon. Gentleman know that special grants have gone to authorities that broke the law and are denied to authorities that observed the law?

Sir J. GILMOUR

I am aware of all the circumstances, and I have had to weigh most carefully all the factors involved. My decision has been given, and I am bound to say that I must adhere to it. I was asked questions about children living more than three miles from a school. My Department has been in communication with the Association of Education Authorities and others on this matter, and I hope that any difficulties which may have arisen in the past over that problem will no longer take place. I do not know whether I have answered all the questions that were put to me.

Mr. MAXTON

Kincardineshire.

Mr. KIRKWOOD

What about Dumbartonshire?

Sir J. GILMOUR

In regard to Dumbartonshire, I do not think I can say more than that I will have the most careful inquiries made. I was under the impression that any kind of difficulty such as that which the hon. Member indicated might arise in the coming winter was very unlikely under the present circumstances, but I repeat that I will have very careful inquiries made. The duties to which the hon. Member referred are duties of the local authorities, and in so far as I am able to strengthen those local authorities I shall do so. In regard to the question which the hon. Member for Bridgeton put to me about Kincardineshire, I cannot charge my memory at the moment as to the exact position, but I do not think that the situation is any different now from what it was some time ago.

It being Eleven of the Clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.

Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next, 25th July; Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.