might have said they would dispense denominational teaching all round as part of a State system. I think that is hopelessly impracticable. * * *

*

The second proposal is that * * * we will confine the instruction to purely secular teaching." I admit that that is absolutely logical and fair to the body at large, but it is hopelessly out of touch with the national sentiment. * * It will commit tens of thousands of the children of our cities to a youth untouched by Christian truths. The secular party may emerge well from this controversy, because it is already a powerful party, and very likely will be reinforced by the man in the street who, sick and tired of theological bickering, will adopt it as a policy of despair. * * * Personally, however, I should oppose that proposal. Then, having dismissed denominationalism as impracticable, having dismissed a system of secular schools as being out of touch with national sentiment, there remains only the system of the State's giving simple Biblical teaching, leaving to outside teachers the task of adding a denominational superstructure. That is the scheme of this bill. Religious teaching need not be given unless the local authority desire it. It is not a very new feature, for it is the fundamental provision of the Cowper-Temple system as laid down in 1870. Then there is a clause under which no child need attend religious instruction unless its parents desire. That is the by-law of the late Government issued through the board of education. * * *

For the first time in the history of this country, under this bill no teacher will be compelled to give religious instruction unless he likes, and that will take away many of those unfortunate aspects of the religious controversy which have been referred to. Clause 7 [in the bill as adopted clause 8], subsection 2, is a real charter of liberty to the teacher. a

MR. BALFOUR ON THE BILL.

In his speech already cited (p. 15) Mr. Birrell referred to the bill of 1902 as the immediate cause of the measure offered by himself. The relation between the two was emphasized also again and again by Mr. Balfour, whose perfect appreciation of the conditions to be met gave special point to his running commentary on the successive clauses of the bill as viewed from the opposition standpoint.

The following extracts from a speech by Mr. Balfour on the second reading of the bill show his position with respect to its treatment of the religious difficulties. Replying to an "attack" upon the act of 1902 by the president of the board of trade (Mr. Lloyd-George), Mr. Balfour said:

I do not quarrel with his dealing with the act of 1902, because I believe this question can only be understood if it is dealt with historically. I do not agree with his criticism, as I shall show in a moment, but I think he was justified in dealing with that act. * * * I have said you ought to approach this question historically, and so you ought. The member for the Louth division of Lincolnshire, if he will forgive me for saying it, had the amazing courage to describe the bill now before us as a moderate and reasonable measure, very unlike the bill of 1902. Well, sir, let hon. gentlemen reflect upon the position we were in in 1902. In 1902 the education system of this country was a by-word to every educationally advanced nation of the world. * * * There is such a thing as secular education, and our system of secular education was a by-word amongst every advanced country in the world. It had to be dealt with in a broad and comprehensive spirit. Secular education was dealt with in a broad and comprehensive spirit, and on the foundation then laid you, the majority, are going to build up anything you can do, if you can do anything, to improve the existing educational system of the country. You have not attempted, you do not mean to attempt, to alter it; you are wise not to attempt to alter it. It remains the broad basis upon which secular education for our children and, I believe, for our grandchildren is going to be framed. Now, sir, we could not deal with the great secular needs of this country without touching the question of the voluntary schools, which educated more than half the children of this country, and we could not touch the question of the voluntary schools without touching the question of religion. * * *

* * *

We found an act in operation dealing with the voluntary schools and the board schools, an act passed by a great Liberal administration. Both the Cowper-Temple clause and the voluntary schools had to be left. To abolish the voluntary schools and leave the Cowper-Temple clause would have been the grossest injustice to one great body of opinion in the state; to abolish the Cowper-Temple clause and leave the voluntary schools would have been an outrage on another great body of opinion in the state. Illogical though they are admitted to be, both had to be left. That being the case, could we have dealt with the question better than we did? * Under Mr. Gladstone's act we found innumerable cases in which schools were under the control of one clerical manager; we cured that.

* *

a Parliamentary Debates, 4th series, vol. 156, pp. 1090, 1091, 1092.

* * * We found that, so far as local control was concerned, there was no representative element in the voluntary schools as regards secular education; we made the control of secular education complete from top to bottom in every school throughout the country. We found there was no machinery in existence for adequately training for the teaching profession men who did not belong to the Church of England; we provided machinery by which this teaching for men not belonging to the Church of England could be provided. We found a large number of parishes in which it might seem to the local authority that the education ought not to be left to the voluntary schools; we gave them power under certain, not harsh or stringent, limitations to build another school side by side. In every one of these great particulars-not details, but vital elements of our education system—we found a method established by a Liberal Government and we corrected it. * * *

Now, that is the system, with its admitted imperfections, of the Cowper-Temple clause on the one side and the single-school area on the other, with which you have got to deal. How have you set about it? I understand from the chancellor of the exchequer and other speakers that you have been driven to put before us this strange legislative effort by what you call "the mandate of the general election."

*

* *

What are these two mandates? They are that you are to establish popular control and to abolish tests for teachers. Is either of these understood in the same sense, or in any sense, by the authority? Take popular control. There is popular control now, under the act of 1902, so far as secular education is concerned. Therefore the mandate must have referred only to religious education. Does this bill establish complete popular control as regards religious education? The education minister has told us that, in his opinion, it is an obligation-a moral though not a statutory obligation—upon the local authority to select for particular schools teachers of a particular creed. Does that mean there is complete local control over these schools in religious matters? I should have thought when you were giving mandatory instructions to the local authority that it was to select teachers of a particu lar religious complexion you must abandon the claim that you have established complete popular control in religious matters, and if you have ever received the mandate you claim to have received you stand convicted of disobeying it at this moment. * * *

* *

*

*

* * *

Will anybody pretend that after this bill is passed there will be either in the provided schools or in the denominational schools under clause 3, or the specially privileged schools under clause 4, either better education, a better system of religious education, or the prospect of a better system of religious education? * * It is going, for example, to take religion out of the compulsory school hours. Would you encourage arithmetic by taking it out of compulsory school hours? Or geography? Or any subject of secular learning? Do think you you are going to aid religious teaching * * * by taking it out of the compulsory hours? * Do you think you are going to improve it by preventing the experienced teachers in voluntary schools, anxious and ready to take their place on the two days a week you are going to allow in voluntary schools, to teach the form of religion for which subscribers gave their money? Do you think you improve the teaching of religion by saying to teachers not willing to give it * * you shall give it? I assume, as surely I am justified in assuming, that for your million of money you are not going to get better religious teaching. There is only one thing you could get, and that is religious peace. Are you going to buy religious peace with this million of money? * There are gentlemen who seem to think that while the Jews have a case against school board teaching, while Roman Catholics have a case against it, the Church of England are to allow the Cowper-Temple clause to remain untouched in their schools and to see with equanimity this diversion of the funds which they have given to the cause of religious as well as of secular education. * * * I doubt whether it is worth while for the Government to go into committee with the view of modifying their bill to an extent which alone would make possible a satisfactory solution of this question. It would be a happier and wiser course if they were to withdraw it altogether and recast it, to adopt new principles. If they think that inconsistent either with sound policy or with their dignity, I can only say that, either in this House or in the country, they are predestined to find arrayed against them forces, both within their own ranks and outside their own ranks, which will compel them to make this measure dealing with religious education something distantly approaching an impartial settlement of the question.a

* *

The position thus assumed by Mr. Balfour in the early days of the discussion of this measure was maintained by him to the end.

FACILITIES FOR DENOMINATIONAL INSTRUCTION IN TRANSFERRED SCHOOLS.

In his speech submitting the bill, Mr. Birrell dwelt upon the fact that it afforded facilities for special denominational teaching in any of the hitherto "nonprovided" schools that may choose to come to terms with the local educational authority.

a Parliamentary Debates, 4th series, vol. 156, pp. 1591-1602.

The facilities are of two kinds, ordinary and extended, the former comprised in clause 3, the latter in clause 4. The two clauses should be examined in connection also with clauses 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9.a

The terms upon which the ordinary facilities may be allowed are as follows: (1) In transferred nonprovided schools only; (2) when stipulated for by the owners as far as their bargain with the local educational authority stipulates; (3) when demanded by parents of children actually attending; (4) on not more than two mornings a week; (5) at the expense of the denomination demanding them; (6) not during the hours of compulsory attendance; (7) nor given by the teachers of the ordinary staff.

The ordinary facilities, as explained in the discussion, were especially intended to meet the case of Church of England schools, which are chiefly rural parochial schools and which in about 8,000 parishes are the only schools.

The discussion of this clause (3) was involved with that of clause 6 (original bill; clause 7 as adopted), characterized by Mr. Birrell as a "perfected conscience clause." The latter clause was assailed on every side as destructive of good school discipline and sure to be abused by worthless parents; great excitement was also caused by the suggestion that the "two mornings a week" privilege (clause 3) might be perverted by an arrangement which would permit the parish clergyman to come into the school every morning to give different sets of children their due share of denominational teaching.

The Government, however, stood firm to its text. Clause 3 went thru committee without amendment as did eventually the conscience clause 6 (adopted bill 7), the latter, however, with the small majority of 47. To local authorities was left the responsibility of safeguarding the school discipline and fulfiling their own agreements.

The conscience clause of the law of 1870, which a large minority of members of the House of Commons sought to retain, merely allowed the children whose parents so desired to withdraw from the denominational teaching. The present clause for the first time in the history of English education allows the parent "to absent his child altogether from attendance at school until after religious lesson has been taken." In other words, it places the religious instruction outside the recognized school hours and thus in the opinion of many has a leaning toward secular schools.

EXTENDED FACILITIES FOR DENOMINATIONAL INSTRUCTION IN TRANSFERRED SCHOOLS.

The storm center of the debate over the bill was clause 4, providing extended facilities for denominational instruction in transferred schools. By this clause power was given to the local educational authority in an urban area (i. e., area having a population above 5,000) to arrange that a transferred school shall maintain denominational teaching as formerly under two conditions: (1) That the parents of at least four-fifths of the children desire these facilities; (2) that there be public school accommodation in schools not affected by the permission for the remaining children.

The effect of these conditions, which were made with special reference to schools maintained by Jews and by the Roman Catholic Church, though not to the exclusion of the Church of England schools, will be best understood from the views of representative men as set forth in the House of Commons or elsewhere.

During the discussion of clause 4 in the House, Mr. John Redmond, on the part of the Nationalists or Irish party, declared that:

The course the discussion had taken and the development of the new Government proposals had caused him and his colleagues most acute pain and misgiving. They had arrived at what was for them the kernel of the whole situation. Clause 4 was to be their charter. It depended on clause 4 whether this bill was to be tolerable for the Catholic schools and whether the religious convictions of the parents who sent their children to these schools would be safe-guarded, or whether, on the other hand, that clause was to be regarded by them as an instrument of injustice and of religious tyranny in the hands of a dominant majority. Personally he had from the first been filled with the belief and hope

a See text of bill, pp. 32-34.

b See text of bill, p. 33.

FACILITIES FOR DENOMINATIONAL INSTRUCTION.

23

that clause 4 would be so altered as to fulfil the object for which it had been introduced. Notwithstanding all that had happened, he did not yet abandon the hope which he had entertained because of the necessities of the case. * * * All that was necessary to make the fourth clause acceptable to them was that it should be made obligatory on the local authorities, so that there should be no loophole for evasion by any pig-headed bodies. They asked in addition that the voice of the parents should be heard in the selection of the teachers, and they asked for a qualification in the limits of 5,000 and four-fifths, which would enable the bulk of the Roman Catholic schools to come in under the provisions of the act. It had been said that the bulk of the Roman Catholic schools would come in under clause 4. There were 1,040 such schools and 501 would be excluded from all benefit under that clause by the double operation of the 5,000 limit and the four-fifths. ** * All that he and his friends wanted was this. They wanted, on the one hand, that there should be sufficient provision for these schools to enable them to be efficient, and, on the other hand, they wanted a provision which would enable them to have religious teaching in their schools as satisfactory to them as the Protestant religious teaching was to the children of the Protestant schools. * * * With regard to contracting out, one of the great cries of the Nonconformists in this controversy, in the country at any rate, had been the objection, the natural objection, which they entertained to pay money for the teaching of a religion with which they did not agree. * * * Now the Government were proposing to revive that system and to say to these poor Catholic schools, "You must maintain your own schools, you must pay for your own Catholic teaching, and in addition to * * rates for the teaching of Protestantism in Protestant schools." pay He did not believe that such a scheme would ever pass into law, and if it did pass into law it would be the opening of a new chapter of sectarian hatred and differences in England.a Mr. Chamberlain defined his position in a speech on the "facilities," the substance of which as presented in the Parliamentary Debates is as follows:

that

you

must

*

For himself, he said, speaking as a Unitarian, he did not attach the great importance that many of his friends did to denominational teaching. With the experience he had of the working classes of this country, he thought the bulk of those classes were not so greatly interested as many people imagined in the sectarian side of the question. That was not a new statement on his part. There was one thing on which they could safely appeal to the democracy, and that was the principle of eternal justice.

He opposed the bill because he thought it unjust and no part more so than the particular limitation of the four-fifths which had been ingeniously introduced in order to include as many as possible of the Catholic schools and exclude as many as possible of the Anglican schools. He was sure that the men in the street, who, after all, dictated the policy of the country, would not support such an injustice. They would say that there must be some intention quite different from that which was avowed on the face of their proceedings. He predicted that sooner or later the Government would have to go back to the people, who they said had given them their mandate. Whatever might be the result of a general election it would not he believed result in anything like a unanimous approval of a policy which, on the face of it, was unjust, unreasonable, unfair, and could not be defended.

The extended facilities excited even more opposition on the part of Liberal members, who based their criticism on the statement of Mr. Birrell himself, that it was "an obvious exception to the whole scheme of the bill as laid down in the first and most important clause."

In view of the opposition to clause 4 on the ground that it extended to Roman Catholics privileges which were denied to the Established Church, the Right Hon. Sir CampbellBannerman, the premier under whose direction the bill has been managed, explained briefly the reason for such discrimination.

Our idea [he said] was that in the ordinary schools there should be taught religion in the form of common elements of Christianity. In the simplicity of my heart I thought that at least in the Church of England that would not have been obnoxious. The common elements of Christianity with, no doubt, a flavor of Protestantism in them--is that really distasteful to the Church of England as by law established? To my amazement a prelate of that church says that Bible teaching is dangerous unless it is accompanied by his standards. His standards! Why, his standards are based upon the Bible and not the Bible on his standards. Still, we provided in our bill for two days' teaching of special doctrines in order to meet the special desires and requirements of the Church. But the Catholics are in a different position. They have never failed to put forward as their ideal the full control of the school from the religious point of view. Therefore it seemed to us that an exception must be attempted which might include the Catholics and also any members or ministers

a Parliamentary Debates, 4th series, vol. 159, pp. 811, 812, 817, 818.

b Ibid., pp. 1003-1006.

or authorities of the Established Church who are more Catholic than anything else, for if that is the conception of a school our general scheme did not meet it. Accordingly, we introduced clause 4, and what the committee have been discussing for the last two days is not the principle of the clause, but the mere machinery by which that principle is to be carried out. On the part of the Government I have to say that the principle and intention of the clause is as I have described it, and to that we are firmly wedded and do not intend to depart in any degree from it; and when I turn to the machinery of the clause, I can only say that it has been the subject of the closest and most careful consideration, and that as it stands we believe it avoids more difficulties and accomplishes more advantages than any other machinery which could be invented for the purpose. We have the appeal, the mandamus, as the ultimate authority, the nonpayment of rent. We have what is called contracting out and the ballot in order to secure that the opinion expressed by the parents of the children is genuine.a

The protests of the Liberals in the House against the bill were emphasized by a deputation to Mr. Birrell from the National Council of Evangelical Free Churches, representing above a thousand provincial associations, in whose name they urged the absolute withdrawal of the clause. Doctor Clifford at this hearing expressed the fear that “the Government were not fully aware of the gravity with which the matter was received by Nonconformist Liberals and thousands of other supporters of the ministry in all parts of the country." He added that, "if clause 4 was allowed to remain in the bill the Government could not rely upon the continued support of the large Nonconformist section of the Liberal party. He was convinced that that was the view of many thousands of them in all parts of the Kingdom."

The suggestion made by Mr. Chamberlain, that the extended facilities were a matter of necessity, is implied also in the following extract from a letter by Mr. Lloyd-George, president of the board of trade, regretting his inability to attend a conference to be held at Bangor, Wales, June 20, to consider the bill, especially in view of the opposition to clause 4:

I am well aware that clause 4 is repugnant to the vast majority of Nonconformists in this country, and I confess it is an encroachment on the symmetry of the national system which the bill is designed to set up, and nothing is to be gained by wild perversions of the purport of that clause. For instance, I observe that letters have been written to the conference stating that the clause is the worst endowment of sectarianism in the schools of this land that has ever been perpetrated by any government. A statement of that character carries with it its own refutation.

Before the conference condemns this bill I should like them to bear in mind one or two facts: (1) That the bill enables the local authorities of England and Wales to give a moral instruction to the children which will be based on the Bible; (2) that such teaching is in itself an adoption of a Protestant attitude towards the Bible; (3) that it is, consequently, if not an offence to the conscience of Catholics, at least antagonistic to the whole theory of Roman Catholicism. From the moment, therefore, that it was decided to give the local education authorities power to give religious instruction in the schools, it seemed an inevitable corollary that you should afford extended facilities to the Roman Catholic parents of the Kingdom in the schools to which they send their children. It may be said that a purely secular system would have avoided the necessity for this. I agree. It certainly would, but the Government, if it had attempted to force secularism through Parliament, would have been hopelessly beaten even in the House of Commons. It is no use, therefore, talking about purely conjectural systems, which would have no chance of becoming law under present conditions. We have got to accept the fact that the overwhelming majority of the people in this country insist upon having some Christian teaching given to their children in the schools of the country. For myself, I think they are right, but I do not wish to argue the point; it is at the present moment outside the region of argument; we have got to deal with it as an irrefragable fact.

I believe that under the circumstances the Government have done their very best to meet this most complicated situation, and I am convinced that the best thing in the interests of Liberalism is that all those who desire to see a settlement of this troubled question should help them to get through the bill as it is. It will accomplish great things. Let those who doubt it imagine for a moment what will happen in their own particular county when the bill is through. In all the parishes where the village school is now under the management and control of one sect, all those children whose parents do not belong to the communion of that sect are rigidly excluded from teacherships. Immediately this bill is passed the school passes under the control of the people who maintain it, and all the boys

a Parliamentary Debates, 4th series, vol. 159.