LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYcalled the attention of the House to the withdrawal of the population grant from the school at Llantrissant, Anglesey, and other schools; and moved for a Return showing the number of grants withdrawn, and of grants made for the first time to schools by the Education Department, since 1st January, 1892, and the reasons for the withdrawal; and also asked the Lord President how he reconciled his statement that those who promote education in other than voluntary schools are not enemies to religion, with the fact that in 40 per cent. of Board schools in Wales the Bible is prohibited, and in another 40 per cent. of schools where it is read comment is prohibited. He said, that in a newspaper called The School Guardian, of November 18, an article appeared headed The Latest Turn of the Screw, which said—
The President in the House of Lords, and the Vice President in the House of Commons, are always loud in their assurances that every possible consideration shall be given to voluntary schools. …. Unfortunately there is a wide difference between the public assurances given by these gentlemen in Parliament and the changed and ever-changing attitude of the Department which they are administering. We absolutely refuse to place the blame upon the shoulders of the permanent officials. The entirely new departures which are now constantly and unexpectedly taking place must be attributed to responsible officials, and we do not hesitate to say that every one of these new departures is in the direction of making more difficult the existence of voluntary schools.That article from a newspaper which he had not heard of before placed all the blame on the responsible heads of the Education Office. He thought that Her Majesty's School Inspectors ought to share in it, and he hoped some of their Lordships would express their opinion on that point. The noble Lord proceeded to state certain facts which had been brought to his attention with reference to deficiencies in schools in which Sir Thomas Acland was interested.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (The Earl of KIMBERLEY)I beg the noble Lord's pardon for interrupting, but I must point out to him that the schools he is referring to have nothing whatever to do with the question of which he has given notice. He is giving a variety of particulars with regard to which I have had no notice whatever.
LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYasked whether the noble Earl preferred that he should give them to the Press and not to the House?
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYThe noble Lord misunderstands me. He can go on if he likes, but I can give no answer to points upon which he has given no notice. I am perfectly willing to answer him on the points of which he has given notice.
LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid, he could not put this matter on the Notice Paper, for had he done so orders would have been given, and the point would have been lost. It was open to the Vice President to give what answer he liked, either by the noble Earl, or through the Press, but the noble Earl surely would not interfere with the liberty of speech in that House.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYI am not saying anything about liberty of speech; but it is altogether contrary to the Rules of this House, when notices are formally given of certain questions, that noble Lords giving them should proceed to discuss other matters entirely. To make an attack upon my Colleague without giving any notice is utterly contrary to Order, and I object to the noble Lord going on with it.
LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid, he would pass over that part of his remarks, and go on with the rest. It was difficult to say whether, as The School Guardian asserted, the permanent officials of the Department were not responsible. It was clear that Her Majesty's School Inspectors had acted like what the Natural History Books called the lion's providers or jackals. The last time that complaints had been made in the House against the Education Department, the Lord President had implied that the Inspectors caused the 215 dissatisfaction, and he said that the Department must trust the Inspectors they employed. There was a limit, however, to such trustfulness. The Foreign Secretary would not place such implicit trust in all Her Majesty's Consuls. Now, most of the School Inspectors were what is commonly called prigs, and they could not help being so, for they were mostly men taken fresh from the Universities, and at once invested with too large a discretionary power over public and private purses. This was the general opinion of them; he had known of an exception—the late Mr. Norris, who died about two years ago. As an instance of the mental disposition of the School Inspectors, he might mention that, before the Education Act, one of these Inspectors desired to expunge from Gray's Elegy the two lines—
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood,on the ground that it would teach the children that Oliver Cromwell was an innocent man. Perhaps after this lapse of time the Department had arrived at a correct understanding of the meaning of the poet, and in its present temper and frame of mind it might want to have these lines expunged, because they might not wish the children to be informed of the guilt of Oliver Cromwell. These lines reminded him of those that immediately preceded them about village Hampdens, and since the speech of the late Prime Minister at Preston, who appeared to hope for a crop of such men in order to resist the exactions ordered by the School Inspectors, perhaps the Department would require this line also to be expunged. There was a circumstance which in some degree excused Her Majesty's School Inspectors, and that was that the conditions under which they acted exactly resembled the circumstances, position, and functions of the Nuisance Inspectors. Both these classes of Inspectors had to justify their existence by finding fault and picking holes; but Her Majesty's School Inspectors, being men of more education, ought to be superior to such a temptation. There was another alternative motive for the harassing conduct of the School Inspectors besides that of possessing wooden minds, but he would be unwilling to 216 believe it—namely, that they were too pliant servants of the Department, and that they were too subservient to the views of the Vice President. Then there was the case of the Rector of Phillack in Cornwall, whose grant due on the 1st July was not paid till the 10th or 11th of this month after notices of questions had been put down in both Houses of Parliament. In this instance the stringent orders of the Vice President were to blame, and not any want of common sense on the part of the School Inspector, who from 1870 till the present Government came in had given no great reason for complaint. With regard to Llantrissant School, for years it had received a population grant of £10 under Article 104, and a year ago it received an additional population grant under Article 105. Both of these had been withdrawn on the ground that the school had a sufficient endowment. The endowment consisted of £33. He would not complain of the withdrawal of the grant under Article 105, which seemed to leave discretion to the Inspector or to the Department; but the grant under Article 104 stood on a different footing, and he had been informed by one who ought to know (Lord Sandford) that there was no right to withdraw it. According to his own view it stood on the same basis as a publican's licence, which could not be withdrawn or withheld, except for misconduct of the publican, or a considerable change of circumstances in the locality. It must be noted that the endowment was a very old one, and that the Department must have known of it when this grant was first made many years ago. What made this conduct of the Inspector worse was the time chosen for this severity. The Rector had just obtained a master instead of a mistress, and had built a house for the master at a cost of £140. The official letter cutting off the two grants, or £20 a year, says—The results in elementary subjects are creditable. The commodious house recently built for the teacher's accommodation will be a great boon.It also says—A class subject must in future be satisfactorily taught throughout the school, as a condition of efficiency (Article 86 of the Code).Judge-made law is often spoken of, and it generally makes sense of Statute Law, but Department - made 217 law not only introduces into elementary schools subjects which are not elementary, but imposes pecuniary burdens beyond what are necessary under the Act of 1870. He now moved for a Return according to the Notice.He would now ask the Lord President the other question on the Notice Paper. A short time ago the Home Secretary said at Leeds in defence of the line now taken by the Education Department that—
The Liberal Party were quite as anxious as their opponents could be that children should enjoy the advantages of religious education. But there was a great difference between religious education and sectarian education. Parliament 20 years ago insisted that sectarian and denominational religious teaching should not be allowed.Now, with the great variety of sects which existed in this country, how could the Liberal Party hit upon any religious teaching which should not be that of one of the sects? In order that any religious teaching should be able to traverse that of all these sects, without merging in that of any one of them, it would have to be of so minute a character as to resemble Euclid's definition of a point—without parts or magnitude, and therefore to be useless in providing the advantages referred to by Mr. Asquith. There was another error in the Home Secretary's defence: he had spoken of 20 years ago, but now the circumstances were entirely altered. Mr. Forster's Act was avowedly intended to supplement the voluntary schools and to teach the "Three R's" to children then outside of these schools, or, as they were then called, "the gutter children." Mr. Forster contemplated a rate of 3d. in the £1; with that the School Boards could not make much of a splash, but they had continued a course of encroachment upon their original functions; they had plunged in building expenses in teachers' salaries; besides teaching the "Three R's" they taught Algebra, and they had crushed out of existence many of the voluntary schools. In many of the Board schools, 40 per cent. of them in Wales, religious teaching had disappeared. Were parental rights to be disregarded, and the children of parents, the majority of the parents in this country, to be deprived of religious teaching? Mr. Asquith went on to say that the Liberal Partywere not going to allow funds compulsorily contributed by members of all denominations, 218 and of none to be applied to the teachings of this or that particular school.The answer to that was the complaint that the funds levied from people of all denominations were applied only to the teaching of those who were of no denomination; in other words, the whole country had to pay for Agnostic teaching to please a few Agnostics. The Lord President might perhaps repudiate the term agnostic, but where did he find Mr. Asquith's anxiety for religious teaching in the 40 per cent. of Board schools in Wales where religious teaching is prohibited? The Bishop of St. Asaph had said publicly that where there was some religious teaching the central doctrine of Christianity was set aside, or not taught, and as the Education Department upheld such teaching it must be inferred that the head of that Department was a Monophysite, and that the Vice President, if he was anything at all, was also a Monophysite. If they did not hold that doctrine they were the more to blame for allowing that doctrine to be taught to the children of parents who wished for Christian teaching. There was a Spanish proverb respecting one man doing the work of two—"No se puede hacer de un diablo dos," which meant literally, "You cannot make two devils out of one." It was just possible that the people of Behar and the victims of the Education Department might say that this proverb was not always true.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYMy noble Friend has called attention to the withdrawal of the population grant at the school of Llantrissant and at other schools. I have no doubt noble Lords are aware that under the Act of Parliament the population grants are given to schools where the population is so small that there is a difficulty in finding sufficient funds, but if funds are otherwise provided the grants are not necessarily given. In the case of the Llantrissant school, the facts are that at the beginning of the current year the school started free of debt, with a grant of £20 18s., which included £5, representing the final payment of fee grant for last year. This sum, with the fee grant of £11 or thereabouts for the current school year, would make a total of £31 18s., which, with the endowment of £33 and the £2 voluntary contribution, would 219 more than meet the ordinary expenses of maintenance. Payment of any grant under Article 104 or 105 was, therefore, considered unnecessary for the efficient conduct of the school, and the managers were so informed in the Report. Where the conditions laid down in the Code for grants under Articles 104 and 105 are satisfied those grants are uniformly paid, unless the Education Department are satisfied, on looking into the accounts, that they are not required for the continued efficient conduct of the school, or that they are being applied merely in reduction of local support. It does not appear to be necessary to make the special Return asked for by my noble Friend, because the information required may be readily obtained on reference to Part IV. of the Annual Reports for 1891–2 and 1892–3 (containing respectively a full statement of the grants to schools for the inspection years ending August 31, 1891 and 1892), and to Part IV. of the Annual Report for 1893–4, containing a similar statement for the inspection year ended August 31, 1893, which is now with the printers, and will shortly be laid before the House. In these Returns the schools which have received grants, under either Article 104 or Article 105, are indicated by distinctive marks. The Education Department has no information relating to religious teaching in School Board schools later than that contained in the Return to an Order of the House of Lords dated May 15, 1888, made on the Motion of Lord Harrowby. From that Return, which was ordered to be printed on December 20, 1888, it appears that in 39 per cent. of the Board schools in Wales the Bible is not read at all, and that in 70 per cent. of the remaining Welsh Board schools the Bible is read without comment. The percentage of English School Boards so prohibiting or restricting Bible reading in their schools is exceedingly small. My noble Friend has drawn certain conclusions, and, I suppose, intended it to be implied that the Welsh are not a religious people. I do not myself pretend to any special acquaintance with Wales, but, whatever else is said about the Welsh, I have always understood that they are a very religious people, and, although it may not have been wise for them to exclude Bible teaching, it would be unjust and 220 untrue and wrong to the Welsh people to argue that they are averse or indifferent to religion. That is my answer to my noble Friend.
§ Motion (by leave of the House) withdrawn.