fudge; unless they are “mere sound and fury, signifying nothing," no other clause than this was possible. It does not fall short of our pledge, it does not go beyond our pledge, it is our pledge. It carries also with it a second pledge, in relation to tests for teachers. We have been sliding down what a famous Archbishop of Canterbury once called the "slippery slope" for many a year. I believe to-day we have reached the bottom of the hill. The act of 1902 held the bill of 1906 within its arms. Many saw it there. If ever men can be said to have intended the natural consequences of their own action, the promoters and supporters of the bill of 1902 must be said to have intended the first clause of the bill of 1906. The late prime minister whose absence from the House and the reason for it I personally greatly deplore for although a most formidable critic he is certainly always the most agreeable of auditors the right hon. gentleman, winding up the third reading debate on the bill of 1902, made use of these significant words, having in them almost something of a prophetic strain. He said:

"I ask no man to change his opinion upon this bill. I ask no man to give up what he regards as a conscientious conviction; my demand is simply this—living as we do in a free and constitutionally governed country, that they should attempt to make the best of a measure passed by the legislature of this country, and that if that measure fails and in so far as it fails they should devote their attention to amending it. I do not ask them to approve it. I do not ask them to say that if they had been in power they would not have found some much better plan for dealing with the infinitely difficult problem, but I do ask them, I do make this demand on the patriotism and public spirit of every class, clerical and nonclerical, in this country, that when this bill becomes law they shall do their best to work it while it is unamended, and if it requires amendment that they shall use constitutional means to amend it in conformity with the declared will of the people.'

That is what we are here to do to-day, using constitutional means to amend the law in conformity with the declared will of the people. In old days the voluntary schools of this country, the old British schools, with their noble maxim "schools for all," and the national schools, which were frankly Church of England schools without a conscience clausethese voluntary schools were voluntary schools in substance and in fact. No child had need to attend them and no citizen was required to subscribe to them. In 1876 attendance became compulsory, and in 1902 the denominational schools of the country were all dumped down upon the rates, subscriptions became obligatory, and were garnered by that pious churchman, the rate collector.

* * *

Everybody long ago, I can not but think, must have foreseen this inevitable resultthere is no other way out of it-where the public money is taken complete public control must of necessity follow. In many places the abolition and destruction of this vexatious dual system will come as a great relief. The officials of several of our great educational authorities have told me that they are sick with the worry and annoyance of the costly employment of officials who have little else, indeed, sometimes nothing else, to do but to adjust the haggling accounts of the lighting, warming, and heating of these schools between the private owners and the local authority. Dual control has had a gloomy history in this country and in Ireland. We know what comes out of it. I believe that the abolition of it in this case will save an enormous amount of time, temper, and the ratepayers' money.

THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION.

Having thus explained the basis for the future recognition of provided schools (i. e., public schools in the American sense of the term), Mr. Birrell proceeded at once to consider the change it involves in respect to sectarian instruction, hitherto cherished as a sacred mission or an inviolable right in voluntary schools.

This first clause [said Mr. Birrell] carries with it certain definite consequences. Every voluntary school receiving rates or grants becomes at once, on so doing, a provided school within the meaning of the education acts, and consequently it will receive the same kind of religious instruction as is now being given in the provided schools of the country, subject to the famous condition that no catechism or religious formulary, distinctive of any particular denomination, shall be taught in the school, and subject always to a conscience clause. This is to be the general rule throughout the land. And on what is it based? It is based, I do honestly believe, upon the happy experience of thirty-six years, during which millions and millions of English children have received their whole school education under these conditions without question and without demur on the part of the parents or of the children attending these schools. On that experience we are content to build. It is often said that this school-board religious instruction, as it is contemptuously described-that these religious exercises and biblical instruction given in the schools-were a Nonconformist invention. It has been said by ecclesiastics of eminence, who ought to know better, that it is a Nonconformist religion. As a Nonconformist born and bred, as a man nurtured in Nonconformist history and Nonconformist traditions, as one who might almost be described

as having been born in the very library of a Nonconformist minister, I protest against that description. It is absolutely without truth and without foundation. If you want to find out for yourselves, as I wish every member of this House would find out for himself, the nature and the character of the religious instruction given in the provided schools (former board schools) by almost all-practically by all the local education authorities, you must seek for it in the various syllabuses which have been printed and issued by these authorities. I have seen scores of such syllabuses and have had the pleasure of reading them. It has been the only part of my duty during the last few months that has done me any spiritual good. * *

*

They are the work of good and pious men of every creed, who have done their best, and have done it successfully, as Sir William Portala has said, to secure harmonious relations throughout the county. I would like hon. gentlemen to put themselves this question: What substantial difference do they think exists in Hampshire between the religious teaching in the county b schools, conducted under the syllabus, and the religious instruction given in the ordinary national schools in communion with the churches? This admirable system has grown up of itself. It was in no sense a foster child of Parliament. If you read the debates of 1870 you will find that eminent parliamentarians made fun of it, and so distinguished a man as Mr. Disraeli ventured to prophesy that the result would be that all sorts of different religions would be taught in different parts of the country-a Leeds religion, a Liverpool religion, and an Exeter religion.

That has not proved to be the case. The inbred piety and good sense of the English people have prevented anything of the sort springing up. I say that it is a system which suits our Protestant population, and a child is seldom withdrawn from this religious instruction. Old teachers men with thirty years' experience behind them-have told me that, casting their mind back over that long period, they scarcely remember a single instance of anyone withdrawing his child from it. Even unbelievers and they are numerous in large towns-do not as a rule withdraw their children from this instruction. They probably agree with that very wise man, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who said "that if you want to make your son a fanatic the best thing to do is to withdraw him from all sympathy with the religious feelings of the age in which he lives." That is not a wise course, and I believe, therefore, we might honestly say that this system, ridiculed as it has been, of biblical instruction is in conformity with, suits the needs of, and has secured the approval of the large majority of the Protestant population of this country.

ALTERNATIVE TO BIBLICAL INSTRUCTION.

Now, what is the alternative? To banish the opening prayer, to silence the familiar hymn, to exclude the Bible, save in elegant extracts-there may be logic in that, but I contend that to do so would be to act against the whole desire of the nation, and I certainly would say, let us preserve as long as we can, in a prosaic age and amongst a prosaic people, any idealism we can lay our hands on. "Where no vision is the people perisheth." Our people have been accustomed to look for such scanty glimpses as they have ever obtained of the heavenly vision in the pages of the Bible. I can see no reason to interfere with what I believe to be the national feeling. The other alternative is denominational education all round—a multiplicity of schools. I will not stop to argue that. I regard it as frankly impossible. I do not deny for a moment that during all the years this strife has been going on between Church and Dissent the onlookers, the noncombatants, have grown more and more numerous, and some of them not a little weary and disgusted. They are disposed to say, "Carry on your quarrels, if you will, on consecrated ground only, and leave us in peace and in possession of our schools and of our children." For the reasons I have given I hope no such views as these will prevail. If they do it will be because of the strange alliance between those who call themselves secularists and those able men, few in number, who regard with suspicion and dislike the simple religious exercises and biblical instruction which some people go so far as to describe as a new religion. I will not enter into any controversy with any living authorities, but I can not help referring to one great Archbishop of Canterbury who entertained a very different opinion about the value of these simple exercises and this biblical instruction. I mean the late Dr. Temple.

He was a scholar, a college tutor, a school inspector, a great headmaster. He was Bishop of Exeter, Bishop of London, and Archbishop of Canterbury. He knew this question from top to bottom, and he never hesitated to express his opinion that he attached extreme value to the instruction given in our board schools, and that he was very far from thinking that there was anything in it inconsistent with the children's receiving at other times, at other hands, and other places the full teaching of the denomination of their parents.

Starting then with complete popular control, carrying with it the appointment by the local educational authority of the teacher to whom no creed test can be applied, and with such sylla

aVice-chairman of the Hampshire county council.

The provided schools are often referred to as county or council schools.

bus teaching as the local educational authority adopts subject to the conscience clause, I come now to consider the question of the necessary supply of school places. One-half of the children of the country are now in nonprovided schools some very good, some not so good, some bad, and some very bad. Now, what is required? The use of the schoolhouse for five days a week, from nine o'clock in the morning till four in the afternoon. And for what purpose is it required? To carry on State-aided, rate-maintained, Government-inspected public elementary schools—a public institution of the very first class of material importance.a

That Mr. Birrell had rightly gaged the temper of the people in their desire for religious instruction in the schools appears from the fate of two amendments offered to Clause 1. The proposition to secularize the schools and thus avoid all further controversy over this question was lost by the enormous majority of 414 votes, swelled by accessions from every party in the House. On the other hand, Mr. Chamberlain's plan of "inside facilities" for all denominations was rejected by a purely official majority of 187.

THE TRANSFER OF VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS.

The status of "provided schools" having been settled by the vote upon the first clause of the bill, all interest centered in the conditions affecting the transfer of voluntary schools to the local authorities, first, as regards their property interests; secondly, as regards the continuance of their sectarian teaching by special favor.

Clause 2 provides that the terms on which the local authorities may have possession of the school buildings of transferred schools shall be settled by agreement between them and the trustees, with the approval of the board of education and subject to specified conditions.

These conditions bring the charge "of maintaining the entire fabric of the school buildings" (estimated at £250,000 a year) upon the local authorities in return for their unrestricted use during the regular school hours. The owners of the buildings, as Mr. Birrell explained, will have “sole exclusive possession of them during the whole of Saturday and Sunday, and also have the use of them in the evenings of the week days," hence, he adds, "the cost of their permanent upkeep is a very considerable gift to the owners of the schools for the expenses which otherwise they have to bear."

To meet the increased expenses incurred by the transfer, the bill provides for an additional annual grant of £1,000,000 (Clause 12 in the original bill; 13 in the bill as adopted). During the debate on clause 2 it was repeatedly pointed out that no compulsion rested upon a local authority to take over any school. The sincerity of the government in this respect was tested by an amendment to the clause which carried what Mr. Birrell aptly termed "bilateral compulsion.'

The amendment provided for appeal to the board of education in case either the local authority or the trustees should fail to carry out the provisions of the law in good faith. It was defeated by a vote of 327 to 78, "the government whips telling against it." This was the first of several votes by which the House of Commons evinced its determination not to encroach upon the province of the local authorities.

To understand the spirit in which the debate over the bill was continued, especially the clauses relating to denominational schools, it is desirable to have clearly in mind the attitude of the Conservative party, and also the disabilities against which Nonconformists have protested under the existing conditions.

A CONSERVATIVE VIEW-SPEECH OF MR. WYNDHAM.

The Conservative position in respect to four points emphasized by different members during the debate, namely, religious equality, the rights of parents, the rights of teachers, and property rights, is indicated by the following citations from the speech of Mr. Wyndham, who, on the second reading, moved the rejection of the bill. After a brief enumeration of the main provisions of the bill, he said:

In Part I of the bill there is a violation of the principle of religious equality. That in itself is unjust; that in itself calls for our strenuous and uncompromising opposition, unless

a Parliamentary Debates, 4th series, vol. 155, p. 1019.

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and until you so amend the bill as to make it consistent with the principle of religious equality, and it bears other evils in its train. We hold that the two things for which we care depend upon the preservation of the principle of religious equality. We may be right or wrong, but in the integrity of our hearts we believe that the continuous maintenance of any form of religious instruction in our schools depends largely upon the preservation of the principle of religious equality. We believe, in the second place, that the degree I shall develop this later to which it is possible to uphold and give effect to the right of the parents depends largely upon preserving the principle of religious equality. You concede that right in theory in certain clauses in this bill. We claim that the right of the parent is to have his child brought up in the religion which the parent prefers, and to have his child taught by those who believe in the religious instruction. You concede that in theory. * * * Well, that is denied. I should have thought that it was conceded by clauses 3 and 4. Otherwise, why were these clauses introduced into the bill at all? But I admit that the concession is of very little value, because when dealing with this right of the parent you limit the operation to nonprovided schools. Why? The parent has the right; it exists independent of the accident which has given this or that character to the school, but you fetter the exercise of this right, you imperil its continuance, and you make no reasonable provision for the future.

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*

The whole of this is illogical. That is not a very grave charge to bring against a bill if it departs from logic in order to meet the exigencies of the people for whom it is brought in. If it does not; if that bill goes out in this or that direction apparently only to inflict injury upon some classes of the population, then, I think, the charge that it is illogical and irrational is one which will have to be met. We hold that so far as the State is concerned it ought to be neutral.a * * *

Until the minister of education brought in this bill, for which he is responsible, the State, in my judgment, had preserved a neutral attitude toward those who, on the one hand, prefer, and we think they have a right to prefer, that religious instruction should be of a definite character and that it should be given by competent persons in school hours, and, on the other hand, those of our fellow-citizens who prefer, as they have a perfect right to do, that religious instruction should be of an undenominational character; that if they are satisfied with the bill denominational instruction should be given only by the good nature of anyone who cares to give it, and that it should be given out of school hours. I hold that the State should hold the balance equally between these two great sections. But taking the facts as they are, the schools in this country in which religious education of the first kind is given number something over 14,200. They are two-thirds of the schools of this country, and more than half the children of the country are being educated in them. Under clause 1 of the bill, with an exception which I promise to deal with as fairly as I can, the rule is that all those schools are to be transferred or converted from the kind of school which many prefer into the kind of school which others prefer. The rule is, with certain exceptions, that from all these schools the religious teaching to which millions of our countrymen attach immense importance is to be abandoned; that the teachers belonging to the various denominations who have perhaps joined the teaching profession because they cared more about these matters than about the mere curriculum of secular education are silenced. They are not to be allowed to teach. That is a great interference with the liberty of the subject, and it is resented by a great body of the teachers. Moreover, owing to the operation of the third part of the bill, some of these teachers may find that their occupation is gone.b * * *

We did not attack the undenominational schools; but we did believe, and we do believe, that the existence side by side with undenominational religious instruction of definite religious instruction was a stimulus which kept up the standard of religious instruction in board schools, which are now the provided schools. We believe that if you crush out definite religious instruction you imperil the maintenance of any form of religious instruction as part and parcel of the education of the English child.c * * *

Let me now turn to the method of transfer. By clause 2 the transfer is to be carried out by arrangement (which is a new word in legislation) between the owners or trustees of the schools and the local bodies in cases where the local body desires to do so, and in cases where it does not desire to do so these schools may cease to be public elementary schools, and the local body may rate all those who have subscribed these large sums of money in order to build two or three schools to compete with the original schools, withdrawing from them all rate aid and aid from the exchequer. That is a monstrous proposition. You invite two persons to make a bargain, and you give to one of the parties to the arrangement the power of ruining the other unless he accepts the terms. The local authority says to the trustees of the unprovided schools, "If you do not accept my terms I shall withdraw all public aid from your schools and build two others and rate you for them. Now, what will you take?" But if even with this wonderful lever which the Government has placed in the hands of the local authority they do not succeed in making

a Parliamentary Debates, 4th series, vol. 156, pp. 1015 1016, 1017. b Ibid., pp. 1017-1018. c Ibid. pp. 1020-1021.

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an arrangement, then this anonymous, this novel body, is brought into being; this commission of three, with powers utterly unknown, is placed above all law. And what a long time the Government is going to give owners and trustees to make this arrangement. a ** There are 14,200 voluntary schools, nearly all of them under trusts. Do you suppose, in default of arrangement before January 1st, 1907, that in twenty or thirty years your commission, unless you give them all the powers of Oliver Cromwell's military generals, will be able to extract that property from people whom you compel to defend it?

I come to the first exemption from the iron rule-clause 3, the ordinary facilities. If the local authority allows it, if the commission awards it, only in the nonprovided schools religious instruction may be given upon two mornings in the week. The teachers are prohibited by the State from giving it, and the pupils are told by statute that they need not attend. Why, it is a mockery. I will not waste time upon that. Coming to clause 4, the extraordinary facilities, which are confined to urban districts and to boroughs, there, if the local authority allows it and the inquiry demonstrates that four-fifths of the parents wish it, the school is to remain more or less a denominational school. I say there is no liberty in any of these exemptions. * *

*

You are forcing the country into a period of religious war, and we think that no solution can be arrived at which does not recognize the right of the parent to choose the religious education which is to be given to the child. If you do not do that you at once set up an unfair distinction between the opportunities of the rich and the opportunities of the poor in this country. The rich man sends his son, to Eton, and his child hears the services of the Church of England, to which he may be attached by many associations every day of his life. Why, if a poor man wishes that, is he not to have it? c * * *

We may have to endure the persecution of this bill, but we will battle against it at every stage, and if the bill is passed, then throughout this Parliament and in every succeeding Parliament, until some recognition is given of ". the natural and inalienable right" of every parent to see that his child receives from the State the religious teaching which his parents claim for it.d * * *

DOCTOR MACNAMARA IN REPLY TO MR. WYNDHAM.

Doctor Macnamara, replying to Mr. Wyndham, declared that the State departed from its policy of neutrality in educational matters in 1902.

I venture [he said] to give three small points in proof of my contention, and in justification of my interruption. The first of these points is that the act of 1902-the act of the leader of the opposition-put the denominational schools upon the rates of the locality, of which I do not complain, and which I think was a right thing to do, and which I think was a great reform; but it avoided the direct consequence of popular control, which is that the moment you place public education on public funds you must follow that up by giving full public control. * * *It gave a nonprovided school six managers, of whom the public had two and the trustees four. * e

* *

Again, at the present moment there are over 30,000 head teacherships in this country which are salaried out of public funds. As to 18,000 of those head teacherships, no nonconformist can, under any circumstances, apply for the post of head teacher, and in 16,220 nobody can get the position who is not a member of the Church of England. That, again, I think, is a fantastic notion of neutrality. In the third place, to go no further, although I could multiply these illustrations, there are 7,987 places open to King's scholars in the residential training colleges; but in 4,309 of those places, no matter how successful the King's scholar had been, he would not be admitted unless he changed his religion and became a member of the Church of England.ƒ * * *

The right hon. gentleman, the member for Dover, has said that the denominational buildings, which it is alleged are to be confiscated under the bill, are worth £32,000,000, and that the money has been subscribed because of religious zeal.

* * *

It is of course notorious that much of this money has been contributed for other reasonsto keep out the higher charge of a school board.g * * *

Let me, with great respect, offer a word of warning to the extreme denominationalists who talk about confiscation. I would recommend them to agree with their adversary quickly, while he is in the way with them. I certainly think the local authority, if there is much haggling, will say: "Go away. We decline to treat with you. We will build our own schools. We will spread the cost over sixty years. The financial burden will be immediately less, and in the long run we will have a building of our own, and all the time we shall have complete control of it."

The other main attack on the bill rages around the eternal religious question. It seems to me there are three courses open to the Government in dealing with this question. They

dIbid., p. 1027.

a Parliamentary Debates, 4th series, vol. 156, pp. 1021-1022. b Ibid., pp. 1022-1023. c1bid., p. 1025. eIbid., pp. 1086-1087. f Ibid., p. 1087. g Ibid., p. 1089.