HL Deb 09 April 1878 vol 239 cc949-54

House in Committee (according to Order).

Clauses 1 to 5 agreed to.

Clause 6 (Restriction of casual employment of children).

THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDON moved to insert, at end of clause, as a separate paragraph— A school board may, by writing under the hand of the clerk, exempt from the prohibitions of this section any child for a period or periods named in such writing, and not exceeding in the whole six weeks, between the first day of January and the thirty-first day of December in any year.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 7 (Exception to prohibition of employment of children).

THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDON moved to omit, from subsection 2, the words— ("Or otherwise does not interfere with the efficient elementary instruction of such child, and that the child obtains such instruction by regular attendance for full time at an inspected school, or in some other equally efficient manner,") and insert, ("not being hours during which casual employment is hereinbefore prohibited.")

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

asked what was the object of the Amendment, which appeared to him to place an undue restriction on the freedom of parents? Why was not the clause to be retained in its original form?

The DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDON

said, the reason of the proposed alteration was, that inasmuch as by Clause 6 there was a provision that no children above 10 and under 13 should be employed in any casual employment after 9 o'clock at night in the summer, and after 7 o'clock in the winter six months; and for a six weeks' holiday, it was necessary to insert some protection to employers, so that they should not be punished for employing them within the excepted periods.

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

said, it seemed to him they were striking out an important protection to the rights of parents.

Amendment agreed to.

Clauses 8, 9, and 10 agreed to.

Clauses 11 to 12 struck out.

Clauses 13 to 16 agreed to.

Clause 17 (Resignation of member of school board and supplying vacancy).

Amendment made, by substituting ("eight") weeks for ("four") as the period after which, in default of a vacancy being supplied by a school board, the Scotch Education Department might interfere to nominate a new member.

Words added— ("Or may issue an order for an election of a person to fill such vacancy at such time and place and in such manner as the said Department shall determine.")

On Motion of The Duke of RICHMOND and GORDON, the following new clause inserted after Clause 17:—

(Disqualification of member of school board for non-attendance.) If a member of a school board absents himself during six successive months from all meetings of the board, except from temporary illness or other cause to be approved by the board, such person shall cease to be a member of the school board, and his office shall thereupon be vacant.

Clause 18 (Proceedings where quorum fails by death, &c.)

An Amendment made, line 30, after ("members,") insert— ("Or may issue an order for an election of such number of members at such time and place and in such manner as the said Department shall determine.")

Clause 19 (Expenses of higher class school buildings may be paid out of school fund and charged on rates).

THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDON moved, to leave out, at the commencement of the clause, the words from ("The") to ("enlarging"), both inclusive, and insert ("A school board having the management of"); and, line 33, leave out after ("Act") to end of clause, and insert— ("Shall maintain the buildings thereof out of the school fund in the same manner in which it is bound to maintain the buildings of any other school under its management; provided that nothing contained in this section shall in any way affect the powers of borrowing from the Public Works Loan Commissioners conferred on school boards by the principal Act.") The object of the Amendment was to render the provisions of the Bill more clear, and to enable a school board having the management of any schools of the higher class to maintain them out of the school funds, and thus to put an end to that system of borrowing money which had been exercised to so great an extent, and which was fraught with considerable objection. It was very doubtful whether it would be possible to maintain these high-class schools under the provisions of the principal Act.

THE MARQUESS OF RIPON

said, he thought it a mistake to apply Government Funds or local rates to any great extent to the purposes of secondary education. According to the principal Act, it was in the power of school boards to pay for the repairing and enlarging of certain secondary schools out of the rates; but, as he had said, he thought anything beyond this a mistake. It seemed to him that the persons who were benefited by secondary education were a class who ought to bear the expenses of such education themselves.

THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH

said, he hoped that before this Bill was passed some means would be taken by inserting provisions for checking the reckless and extravagant expenditure of school boards in Scotland. That expenditure was, in many instances, perfectly alarming. These school boards were perfectly irresponsible; the ratepayers had no sort of control over them, and they spent large sums of money in building great edifices that were entirely unnecessary. Monster buildings were erected, in which 600 or 700 scholars were collected from various parts of the different parishes. The education, in his opinion, would be much more effective if given in smaller schools in the several parishes. There was no proper or sufficient audit, and, as he had said, there were no means of checking the extravagance. In regard to the question of secondary education raised by his noble Friend opposite (the Marquess of Ripon), he would remind him that in Scotland, in the country parishes the higher branches of education had hitherto been afforded by the parish schools. Many a man who had risen to eminence owed his original education to the high standard in the Scotch parochial schools. In the towns it was easy enough for a man to send his son to a secondary school; but in the large agricultural districts, where there were many tenant-farmers of considerable wealth and owning large holdings, they had not the means of sending their children to secondary schools. Hitherto that secondary education had, to a certain extent, been supplied by the parochial schools; but now they no longer cared for secondary education, because the schoolmasters had found out that it was more profitable to teach the three R's than to take the trouble of teaching the elementary branches of Latin, Mathematics, and Greek. As to checking expenditure, he thought that the provisions of the English Act should be extended to Scotland; and, as he saw that under the Endowed Schools Act a Commission was appointed with considerable powers, he should be very glad if those powers could be made to extend to all schools in Scotland. He did not believe in a Scotch Education Department at Whitehall. They would probably have an office there, with the word "Scotland" painted in black letters on the door; but the Inspectors would not have the knowledge or information that was required. What he desired to see in Scotland would be a kind of Board of Supervision, resembling those which were appointed to carry out the Poor Laws and Lunacy Laws.

THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDON

said, he would make a few remarks on what had fallen from the noble Duke on the subject of secondary education in Scotland. The object of this Bill, and of the Bill which he had the honour of introducing the other day, was to assist in improving the standard of education. When the noble Duke complained that the schoolmasters were confining their efforts to elementary education, he would remind him that that was the necessary result of the working of the Education Act of 1870. The Act made it the duty of the school boards in Scotland to provide sufficient elementary instruction for all children requiring it; and, therefore, it ought not to be made a matter of complaint that these schoolmasters brought the children together in large numbers for the purpose of giving them the best elementary education that could be found. The noble Duke then went into the question of whether the Scotch Education Department established in London was well qualified to deal with the subject of secondary education, and he attached much importance to the question of audit. This last matter had been before them in drawing up the Bill; and, in consultation with his Colleagues, they came to the conclusion that the question of audit might more appropriately be made part of the Scotch Poor Law Bill, which probably would be introduced in "another place." The subject of audit should, they thought, be dealt with in that Bill, and might be applied through it to parochial board schools. His noble Friend the noble Duke said that the present system was very unsatisfactory. He said that the reckless building of schools which had taken place throughout Scotland was "perfectly alarming;" but he wished the noble Duke to recollect that this reckless building had taken place under the supervision and with the sanction of the Education Board at Edinburgh, with the existence of which he was so satisfied.

THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH

said, he would like to add this remark as to the Board of Education in Edinburgh—that the Board in London had no power to check any expenditure the school boards might think fit to incur. It was not the number of schools to which he objected, but the extravagant character of the buildings. The noble Duke opposite (the Duke of Argyll) was aware of what he meant. They saw schools in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh which had cost £5,000 or £6,000 each—an unnecessarily large sum to spend on any school. The whole of the accommodation required in the particular parish where these schools were situated would be much better provided by two or three schools; and, in the county districts it would be far better to have two or three schools than to bring children from all quarters to one centre—especially when they considered that some of them had to come a long way from their homes.

THE DUKE OF ARGYLL

said, he entirely agreed in the opinion of the noble Duke opposite. In many classes in Scotland the ratepayers, or the school boards representing the ratepayers, were extremely extravagant. Therefore, he thought, it would be desirable that there should be some control over them. He did not know whether the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond and Gordon) contemplated any check on school boards in the present measure, or whether or not the Education Department contemplated anything of the sort—he was afraid not. They often found an ordinary parish school built with an expensive steeple, as if it were a church, costing some hundreds of pounds, whilst at the best it was a perfectly useless ornament.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, agreed to.

Clause 20 (Examination of higher class schools).

An Amendment made, line 15, after ("purpose") insert— ("When a higher class public school shall have been examined under the provisions of this section, such examination shall come in place of an examination under section sixty-two of the principal Act.")

Amendment agreed to.

Remaining clauses agreed to.

The Report of the Amendment to be received on Thursday next; and Bill to be printed, as amended. (No. 69.)