be efficient according to the standard which parliament from time to time may set up. In the second place, the inspection will be no longer voluntary; and it will be required that every school shall submit to an inspection without any denominational conditions. A conscienceclause will also be attached to every school as the condition of any grant. This condition will also apply to every kind of grant, whether for building or for any other purposes. These are the broad principles on which the bill is framed; and I trust they will secure not only the approval, but the support of parties opposite. They must recollect that this conscience-clause will apply to every kind of school, whether Church of England or of any other persuasion. I now come to what many will think the most important part of the bill-compulsory provision of schools. I do not believe that any central authority can undertake to supply schools all over England; and as voluntary local efforts have failed, we must supply what is wanted by local taxation under local management, to be supplemented by a government grant, but with central supervision and inspection. For this purpose there will be a power to unite parishes together; for the requirements of the town and country districts are so different, that it is absolutely necessary to have some power of the kind; but it is not contemplated to make the area of the school unions the same as that of the poor-law unions. Next with respect to the local boards of management, who are to elect them? We have come to the conclusion that in towns the towncouncil will be the best agency to elect school boards, and in the country the select vestries; but if there is no select vestry, then the vestry. With respect to parents, I will first state that we are not prepared to give up school fees; it will not be necessary nor advantageous. But there will be a power in exceedingly poor and destitute districts to set up free schools, subject to the approval of the central boards, and also to give free tickets, but with due care that they attach no social stigma. I know that the question of local rates is a very delicate matter; but I believe the money will be the best expended of all, and will eventually tend to decrease the other rates. The rate will not be a special one, but will be levied with the poor-rate; and there will be a power in this bill, wherever this charge exceeds threepence in the

1870.] MR. FORSTER ON THE EDUCATION BILL. 391

pound, that it should be supplemented by a grant. The local boards will have a discretion either to establish fresh schools, or to assist the existing schools; but if they assist one, they must assist all, and not select any one for the bestowal of their favours. With respect to the knotty point of religious instruction, having inserted a most extensive clause, we will not interfere with the discretion of the local boards. The next question is the most difficult of all. It is, how to secure the attendance of the children. The bill places before the House the principle of compulsion, the feeling in favour of which is, I believe, rapidly gaining ground; and it has already been established in the factory and short-time industrial schools. In them the plea of the value of the children's time is not admitted as valid to prevent them from being educated. The principle must be applied to all trades and manufactories alike, and will require a large army of inspectors to enforce it. To effect compulsory attendance, power will be given to school boards to frame bye-laws to compel attendance between the hours of twelve and five, unless reasonable cause can be alleged. These bye-laws will be approved by central authority, and laid before parliament. The question of the number of attendances will be left as a detail for the local board to decide. These are the provisions of the bill, and in them the government has attempted to carry out what they believe to be the duty of the central executive-to see that every child in the country has the means of education placed within its reach. Having done this, they have provided that the work, as regards its details, should be done by the local authorities, under the inspection and, if need be, the compulsion of the central executive on behalf of the state. The system may be described as the education of the people's children by the people's executive, under the control and supervision of the people's representatives.'

Seldom has an important government measure been received in a more candid spirit than was displayed towards the bill thus explained and introduced. Sir J. Pakington, who had displayed a warmer interest in the education question than any of his party, was most hearty and unreserved in his expressions of approval; and his remarks were as cordially cheered by the members who sat behind him as by those who occupied the ministerial benches.

Almost the only blemish he seemed to discover in it was, that it did not provide for the appointment of a minister of public instruction. Some supporters of the government complained that the bill did not go far enough, and wished all dogmatic teaching to be banished from schools supported by public money. But even this party was not disposed to reject a bill attempting to provide a system of national education, and boldly grappling with the 'religious difficulty,' which had proved fatal to so many previous attempts to settle this great question. In the interval between the first and second reading of the bill two societies had been formed, representing the two antagonistic views that were taken with regard to it-the Educational League and the Educational Union. These two bodies strove by meetings and other means to influence the public, and through them the House of Commons and the government, in favour of their respective views. Both agreed in professing a desire to give to every child in the country, as far as possible, an elementary education, to continue state aid to existing schools, and to respect the conscientious religious scruples of parents. But the league proposed to provide for the local support of schools from the rates alone; the union insisted that they should be supplemented by subscriptions and by the children's pence. The former was in favour of enforcing attendance at school by direct compulsion, the latter by indirect compulsion; the former insisted that there should be no religious teaching in rate-supported schools, the latter recommended a general conscience-clause. When the second reading came on, Mr. Dixon, who was at the head of the league, proposed an amendment embodying the views of that association; but, finding that the feeling of the House was against him, he attempted to withdraw it: the majority, however, insisted that it should be put and negatived, after which the bill was read a second time without a division.

The favourable reception which the bill experienced was owing to the generally felt wish that this important question should at length be settled by a fair compromise. The evident desire of the government that the measure should be a national and not a party one communicated itself to the majority of the members, and caused them to deal with it in the same spirit of candour and equity in

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which it had been introduced. But the chief struggle that arose was with regard to the religious teaching in the rate-supported schools. There were in fact three different parties representing three different opinions on this question. The first demanded that distinct dogmatic teaching should be allowed; the second contended for the reading of the Bible only; the third insisted that the instruction should be exclusively secular. It must not, however, be supposed that the persons holding the last-mentioned view were all of them, or even most of them, hostile to the impartation of religious instruction. Their contention was that the duty and responsibility of giving that instruction, or seeing that it was given, belonged to the parents, and it was desirable that they should be made to feel that this was the case, and not be led to look to others for that teaching which it was their own peculiar province to impart or to superintend.

Meanwhile the necessity for doing something speedily was strongly enforced by the result of an inquiry into the extent and value of the primary education afforded in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, and Liverpool. In Birmingham, it was found that the number of children who ought to have been under education, that is to say who were between the ages of three and thirteen, was 83,000, and the number of these actually being educated was only 26,000. In Leeds, out of 58,000 of school-age, only 19,000 were at school; at Manchester, out of 60,000, there were 25,000; and at Liverpool, out of 90,000, there were only 30,000. Government remained silent, desiring, as Mr. Gladstone explained, 'to reserve to themselves the advantages of consideration for as long a time as possible, because every day multiplied the expression of opinion and feeling in the country.' At length, on the 16th of June, Mr. Gladstone broke the silence which he and his colleagues had so long maintained, and announced that they had determined to adopt a motion of which Mr. Cowper Temple had given notice, to exclude all catechisms and distinctive dogmatic formularies from schools founded by rates, to place voluntary schools under the committee of council, making a maximum increase of 50 per cent. in the grants to them. On the other hand, no more grants were to be made after a certain time, to be fixed in the bill, towards

the erection of new schools. On the motion of Mr. Disraeli the discussion of the measure thus amended was deferred till June 20th. The first division at length took place on the question of going into committee, which was carried by 421 to 60. The bill was in committee from the 24th June till the 27th July, when the report was brought up, and it received its last amendments. In its general outline it was the same measure as when presented to the committee; but it had been very carefully considered, and many important improvements made in its machinery, with the concurrence of government. The compromise adopted by ministers was maintained. The denominational system was continued but not extended. Religious inspection was withdrawn; but religious instruction was permitted, under certain regulations, on the understanding that the state was not in future to be called on to aid in paying for it; and that it was not in any case to be enforced on the child of an objecting parent.

The concessions of the government were, however, far from satisfying Messrs. Dixon and Miall, who expressed their disappointment when the question of the third reading was brought forward on the 22nd of July. The latter gentleman especially spoke in a very acrimonious tone, complaining that he and his friends had been led through the valley of humiliation,' and quoting the proverb 'once bit, twice shy.' His complaints called up Mr. Gladstone, who in the course of his reply to them said: 'If my honourable friend has been bitten, by whom is it? If he has been bitten, it is only in consequence of expectations which he has himself chosen to entertain-expectations not justified by the facts. We have been thankful to have the independent and honourable support of my honourable friend, but that support ceases to be of value when accompanied by reproaches such as these. I hope my honourable friend will not continue that support to the government one moment longer than he deems it consistent with his sense of duty and right. For God's sake, sir, let him withdraw it the moment he thinks it better for the cause that he has at heart that he should do so. So long as my honourable friend thinks fit to give us his support we will co-operate with him for every purpose that we have in common; but when we think his opinions and demands exacting, when