The and in rising to benefit the whole community, and to turn to the utmost account those intellectual resources with which our people, not less than any other people, are nobler aim What naturally gifted? earnest co-operation of the people. American schools appear to have no great excellence of method. But the schools are in the hands of the people, and from this fact they derive a force that seems to make up for many deficiencies. It is impossible to doubt that in England inferior management, if backed up by hearty sympathy from the masses of the people, would succeed better than much greater skill without such support." These words are absolutely true, and, although I have been obliged in some part of my argument to differ from hon. Gentle men opposite, and to express opinions with which they will not agree, I hope they will support me in pleading for local popular representation as a of enlisting popular sympathy and support. This ought to be matter of common agreement, and if the Government have unfortunately been compelled, by what they thought a political exigency, to neglect so vital a principle, the House ought to require them to cure at least this defect in their Bill. means The Government have had a great opportunity. They might have organised and developed secondary education; they might have given us better areas for elementary education; they might have co-ordinated all schools into wholesome and harmonious working; they might have given a stimulus to local interest and sympathy; they might have provided for the better training of teachers. But in their Bill they have done none of these things. Their scheme is a confused patchwork, a mass of cumbrous, complicated machinery, throughout which there is no well-ordered system, no real motive power. It cannot be a final scheme, and those who care for education must try, if they cannot secure its amendment, to endeavour to arouse the nation to insist on something better. We are daily told that the strain of commercial competition is becoming more severe throughout the world, and that we need far more efficient training for our youth in order to enable England to hold her ground against the solid, laborious German and the keen-witted, eager American. That is true; but I ven ture to put the case upon higher ground. What greater interest can a country have than that the teaching throughout all her schools from the top to the bottom shou'd be such as to open -a career for talent, enabling talent to rise, VOL. CVII. [FOURTH SERIES.] that can there be than we should impart to our boys and girls as they pass into the world those worthier intellectual and artistic tastes and capacities for pleasure which make so large a part of the happiness of life, which are an antidote to its temptations, and alleviate its hardships and its sorrows? It is on these great interests that the strength and welfare of an It is these Imperial people depend. great interests that make education a matter of supreme concern. And it is because this measure, framed in a narrow spirit, neglects those interests and holds out no hope or promise of making the schools of England fit to render what England asks and needs, that I move the rejection of this Bill. (4.15.) THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL FOR EDUCATION (Sir JOHN GORST, Cambridge University): I desire to associate myself with the determination with which the right hon. Gentleman began his speech to treat this subject in a spirit of candour and common sense- a determination which, I am bound to say, throughout the greater part of his speech was faithfully carried out. I should also like to associate myself with the intention he expressed of not allowing himself to be drawn into the sectarian controversy, and I hope I shall be more successful in avoiding that precipice than the right hon. Gentleman was at one point of his speech. The right hon. Gentleman began his speech by a direct attack upon the very principle of the Bill. He threw doubt upon the desirability of, or the necessity for, the establishment of an education authority which should have control over education of every kind. I had thought that that, and perhaps that only, would have 2 A schools appears to be a very much more agreeable occupation than that of managing and controlling elementary education, there is the danger of the elementary education being neglected, and of the real schools of the people being cast on one side in order to provide higher education for a small minority. been common ground in this contest. I into the schools than that which is best know that a great number of the ad- for the interests of the district and the herents and supporters of the right hon., country. And then, inasmuch as Gentleman hold the opinion that there managing and controlling secondary ought to be such an authority, though they differ, no doubt, from the Government as to the constitution of that authority. But, as the right hon. Gentleman has thrown doubt upon the necessity which has given rise to the Government Bill, I must express my very strong opinion, an opinion based on seven years administrative experience in the Education Office, that the present state But, besides the evils of competition. of things is absolutely intolerable; that, and overlapping, a single authority although philosophers in their study may is wanted, because in every place be able to distinguish between primary there ought to be a distinct plan and secondary education, it is impossible of schools and of education suitable for administrators, either in London or for the particular wants of the disthe provinces, to carry out any such dis- trict. The Board of Education are of tinction; and that, wherever you have opinion that a plan and arrangement in the same place two public authorities, of schools which may suit the town the one charged with the control and of Bradford will not necessarily suit administration of secondary education, the county of Wiltshire, and the local and the other charged with the control people themselves are the only people and administration of primary education, who can take into consideration the in most cases there must be confusion and circumstances and wants of their own overlapping. There are some few places, neighbourhood, and devise a general of which perhaps the city of Manchester plan of education, with proper schools is the most conspicuous, where the and the proper kinds of classes, to authorities, by a sort of concordat enable their district to be properly among themselves, have avoided the supplied with the education they want. greater part of this evil. But there There is another reason I can give for are other boroughs of great importance having only one authority, and that in which the evil is most conspicuous. is that all higher education, if it is to The result of this overlapping where be effective, must be based upon a two schools are established side by side sound system of elementary schools. where one would do, each under a local It is wasteful to establish technical authority and each endeavouring, institutions and technical schools unless practically, to give the same kind of you have children in the elementary instruction, is admittedly a very great schools properly prepared to evil. The waste of public money is higher instruction. Therefore the body really the smallest part of that evil. If which provides and manages higher it only resulted in a waste of public schools ought to have a voice in the money, one might be able to bear it; but kind of instruction and organisation in the effect of it is to deteriorate the the lower schools. It is the commonest character of the schools and the educa- complaint of the managers of all tion given in them. In the first place, technical institutions at the present the elementa y authority which invades day that the boys and girls come to the province of secondary education has them so ill-prepared in the common to carry on its schools with all kinds of elements of education that they are restrictions in order to do its best to not equipped to profit by the instruction appear to keep itself within the law, and they receive. You put a boy to learn then the fact of there being a competition engineering who has not mistered the between those two authorities for pupils common rules of arithmetic; and they causes the education to be rather that have constantly in these schools to which is most popular and which will establish elementary classes in order attract the greatest number of scholars either to teach what the boy or girl Sir John Gorst. has never yet learned, or to teach over | illogical and contrary to the general again that which they have previously principle of that legislation has not crept learned in the elementary school at the in. But in this particular case the large public expense and have forgotten. Then there is the subject to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, and on which he laid so much stress-the provision for teachers. The provision for the training and education of the teacher is undoubtedly a work of secondary education, and if the authority which is to train and educate the teacher has no control over the elementary schools, how can they possibly provide the kind of teacher which those elementary schools most require? In every other country in the world that I know of, and even in Scotland, they have one authority for all purposes. It is only in England and Wales and in Ireland that this double authority prevails. non-county borough or urban district is only potentially a separate authority; and, if good sense prevails, as I hope it may prevail in a good number of them, I anticipate that there will be an agreement made in every case between the county and the borough which has independent elementary powers, so that the secondary education carried on by the county and the elementary education independently carried on by the borough authorities will be made to dovetail into each other, and confusion will not arise. I admit frankly that it is a departure from the principle of the Bill; but it is a departure which previous legislation has rendered it almost impossible at the present moment to mitigate, and we can only hope that this departure from the principle on which the Bill de MR. BRYCE: In Scotland we have pends will not be attended by any evil one authority ad hoc. SIR JOHN GORST: I say they have one authority. I cannot state the whole thing in a moment. At any rate, they have one authority in Scotland, whether it is ad hoc or not, and it is only in England and Wales that we have the extraordinary phenomenon of two public bodies, one looking after some schools and the other looking after the rest. MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.): We have two authorities in Ireland, both bad. SIR JOHN GORST: I am not sufficiently acquainted with the state of things in Ireland to venture to differ from the hon. Member. It is only in this country that this prevails, and unless some very strong reason can be shown for such a phenomenon, I think we should be wise to copy the rest of mankind and have one authority for all our schools. The right hon. Gentleman said, and said, I am bound to say, with perfect justice, that the Bill does not absolutely carry out this intention. I should have thought that that was a subject we might have relegated to discussion in Committee; but, as the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned it, I may perhaps say that I know of no example of English legislation in which something י consequences. If it is once conceded that there must be a single authority for all kinds of schools, the Government could only choose between two alternatives. It must either take the County Council or it must take a modified and altered School Board. I admit that this is a subject on which a good deal is to be said on both sides. It is a proper subject for the House of Commons to discuss, and the decision of the House upon the Second Reading of this Bill ought to decide-I hope I may say decide once and for allwhich of these two authorities ought to be taken. Now, will the House allow me just to remind them of the way in which this matter presents itself to the Board of Education? I will not go into past history. I will not go into the question of whether certain Acts of Parliament ought or ought not to have been adopted. Just let me ask the House to consider the state of things as it is. You have got, on the one side, the County and County Borough Councils. They cover the whole country. They have legislative authority for their proceedings in secondary education. I say secondary education. In the Act of Parliament it is technical education," but, practically, technical education is so wide that it may be, for the practical purposes of debate, considered to be equivalent to secondary education. They have funds. in many cases very greatly neglected the Their funds may not be adequate, but duties which Parliament put upon them. they are considerable, and they are not [Opposition cries of "No," and Ministerial yet entirely exhausted. And they have cheers.] But the School Boards do not schools. In the twelve years in which cover the whole country like the County these county authorities have been Councils; they are partial only, and exercising educational powers they have they do not yet educate half the children. established 391 new secondary schools, in the country. I do not say that they and they have extended and modified do not cover more than half the area of and adapted 282 more schools, making a the country. I have never said that, total of schools which they have pro but what I have said is that they do not vided for the country of 673. That is educate yet half the children of the exclusive of the Welsh schools under the country. Then, their statutory authority Intermediate Education Act. They is now in name confined entirely to have besides this established an enormous elementary education, and they can only number-thousands-of evening schools teach children under fifteen. There may in the counties: and that has been done be some dispute about fifteen, but I not only by the advanced county think the right hon. Gentleman opposite boroughs like Manchester, Liverpool, and the Attorney General are at one that and Birmingham, but it has been done by definition a child can only safely be even by the agricultural counties. The assumed to be a person under fifteen. county of Cambridgeshire, in which I They can only teach children under live, has established a county school for fifteen, and the advanced work which boys and girls in the town of Cambridge they have been doing in recent years, which is frequented by the sons and their higher grade schools, their evening daughters of the farmers throughout the schools, and their pupil teacher centres, county; and they boast, and I believe are now pronounced to be illegal and boast with truth, that there is a ultra rires. The districts of the School technical evening school now within Boards are wholly unsuitable areas for reach of every boy and every girl living secondary education purposes; that, I in the county of Cambridgeshire. Well, think, is admitted by everybody. The then this body which possesses these School Board is not so popularly elected powers, and which has so exercised as the County Council; it is elected these powers, is the most popularly by a cumulative vote, and not only elected body in the whole country. It is it not elected by so popular a vote is elected by the people, by a more as the County Council but only about extended suffrage than that of the half the voters go to the poll to vote electors of Members of this House. for School Boards that go to the So that to adapt this popularly elected local body to the purposes of an educaional authority is a very easy matter, and requires very little legislation. poll to vote for the County Councils. It is a body which is in name popular, but in fact is elected by a very small number of ratepayers. The Government has been upbraided Now, to make the School Board into an with having so few clauses in its Bill to educational authority would require a constitute this authority. Let me look great deal of very complicated legislaat the other side. On the other side tion. You would have, first of all, to you have the School Board. I do not make School Boards universal. You wish to say anything disrespectful of would have, secondly, to give School the School Boards. Of the School Boards authority over secondary educaBoards in the large towns I have tion, and for the purpose of doing that repeatedly in this House expressed my you would have to take secondary strong approval and my strong admira- education out of the hands of the County tion of the work they have done. I Councils, who have exercised it so cannot be so complimentary to the well and who are now carrying on School Boards in the country districts; the work so admirably. You would have they have, perhaps, on the whole, repre- to alter all the districts, because you sented the very worst kind of local could not turn your School Boards in the authority that could be devised, and have present School Board districts into Sir John Gorst. There are an enormous number of different systems in America, but I fail to find such a system as that. MR. BRYCE: There are some. SIR JOHN GORST: Are there? I know two cases. In the city of Boston there is an elective School Board, but then the City Council of Boston provides the funds; the School Board can only operate with those funds provided by the City Council. And in the great city of Minneapolis there is an elective School Board which does levy rates, but only raises rates up to the amount allowed by the State law. Although the right hon. Gentleman says there is I fail to find any case in America where a body is elected by the people with unlimited power of rating those people for school purposes. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, the election of the School Board at all is rather the exception than the rule in the various cities and States of America. authorities; and most likely you would in England. have to reform, at all events you would be strongly pressed to do so, the method of election. Besides this great change, besides having the easy path of the County Councils and the difficult path of the School Boards, the Government, from the very first day they came into office, have been convinced that the County, Council and not the School Board is the proper authority. Hon. Members on the Opposition Benches: Oh!] You talk as if we had suddenly discovered some new policy. Why, this was the policy of the Bill of 1896, it has been the policy of every Bill which the Government has introduced from then down to the present time which has dealt with this question, and it is the policy on which the whole administration of the Board of Education has been carried on, and for which it has been criticised in this House. The Government think that the ad hoc authority is an anachronism; they think that to propose to advert to an ad hoc authority is reactionary. Formerly whenever a local authority was created it was an ad hoc authority, I mean during the last century; but the ad hoc authority has been given up by every supporter of local self-government, and the only ad hoc authorities which survive to the present day are the School Boards and the Board of Guardians. The reason for this is that opinions on local selfgovernment have made great progress; it is recognised that local self-government is absolutely impossible unless you have local control of the finances; and the SIR JOHN GORST: That is precisely only way you can have effective local self- the point. I am not talking about whether government in this or any other country a Board is elected or not elected, but is for the local electors to choose some whether it has or has not the control body which shall have control of the over the rates, which I say is inconsistent whole local finance and be responsible for with local self-government. What the all the expenditure of the ratepayers' hon. Member opposite has just quoted money. If you have several bodies in- confirms what I have said. But if you dependent of each other exercising in- want to introduce the American system dependent rating powers, how is it conhere you would have to have all the elections on the same day. And in ceivable or possible there can be efficient America control of local finance, and therefore how who are not elected here, a great many a great many people are elected can there be proper, efficient local self- of the ordinary administrators are elected, government? In America they do not and even the judges in a great many fall into this mistake. References have instances. We do not elect them here. been made by many people I noticed As they have all their elections on the that the right hon. Gentleman in his same day in America, the elector who speech did not confirm them as if in all the various people he wants goes to the poll can vote at once for America there was an elective School elect, and they do not expect people, Board which levied independent rates, as as is the case here, to go to the polls to *MR. MATHER (Lancashire, Rossendale): I have an authoritative statement from the Commissoner of Education at Washington, who telegraphed to me two days ago saying that in the majority of the States and cities in America the School Boards are elected by the people, and that the cities settle and supply the amount of money to be spent every year, which is limited by the City Charters. to |