tary school passed the tests of the Education Department it had a right to the payment. As to the references made to the Act of 1870, and the understanding then come to, no doubt that Act was passed by an understanding. Its passing was not characterized by what we have lately witnessed-by discussions of five nights in length. If the Act of 1870 had been met with the same spirit as the Bill of 1876 has been met with, the Act of 1870 would never have reached the Statute Book. The Act of 1870 maintained, generally speaking, a fair neutrality between the board system and the voluntary system: leaving to each locality a free choice between the two systems. But there was one exception to that impartiality. While the Act provided for a change from a denominational to a board school, it refused to sanction a change from a board school to a denominational school. As long as that inequality existed you could not say that the subject was dealt with in a fair and even-handed manner by the Act of 1870. I agree that this clause will not have a large effect. I have no doubt it will relieve a feeling of soreness in this country, but it will not have a large general effect. It will have a moral and indirect effect in another way. It will announce to the country that the State is absolutely impartial between the two systems, and that wherever people are willing to support denominational education, the State will allow that denominational education to be pursued. I think there is nothing in this Bill to justify the belief that it is, in any way, a great or special concession to the Church of England. I believe it is a concession to what is called denominational education or sectarian education. It is a concession to religious education resting upon doctrinal or sectarian teaching; but even to that extent the concession is a small one. As the most rev. Prelate has pointed out, those who are in favour of doctrinal education are anxious for more than they have received; but this Bill has not granted to them everything which will directly stimulate religious education or which will require any form of religious education as a condition of State aid. Our refusal does not arise from indifference to the subject on the part of the Government. It is not because we disagree with those who believe that religious education by the will of the people of this country will always be the predominant education. We have not thought it necessary to approach this subject in the way to which I refer, because we feel confident that there is so thorough a conviction. in all parts of the country that no education which is not a religious education is worthy the State to give or the child to receive-because the Government have the full conviction that the people will remain firm on this point, and will yield to no temptation. We felt that, therefore, we could properly and safely avoid a subject full of difficulties, and that we were not called upon to lay on the Table a Bill that should contain a direct provision requiring religious education as a condition of State aid. The most rev. Prelate told us that coercive education was merely a preparation for that period when the attachment of the people to education should be so determined that coercion would be no longer necessary; because if public opinion on that head was as thorough as could be wished coercive measures would not be necessary. They are now necessary as regards secular education because the need of it is not fully felt by all classes of the population. What he has said of education generally is pre-eminently true of religious education. It is the very universality of the feeling in favour of religious education that has made us feel we could safely avoid a subject so full of difficulties, and lay the Bill upon the Table in its present shape. We have laid down no direct provision for religious education simply because we are convinced that it is unnecessary and not from any feeling that religious education is not desired by the people of England. LORD ABERDARE thought he would be a bold man who should state that he did not know that this Bill could not possibly receive at this period of the Session, the consideration which the importance of its subject required. Не would appeal to the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury), himself to say whether the Bill would now receive the same amount of consideration that would have been bestowed upon it if it had been brought up to that House a month ago? Here was a most important measure consisting of upwards of 60 clauses yet such was the period of the Session that it was quite useless for any noble Lord, however interested, to propose any important modification during its progress through Committee. In refering to the opposition which the measure had lately encountered, the noble Marquess appeared to him to be somewhat unjust towards the Members and supporters of the late Government, for not only was the principle of the measure accepted by them, but some of them actually delivered powerful and effective speeches in its favour. What they had taken exception to was not the principle of the Bill as it was originally drawn, but the changes which the Government had subsequently introduced into it. As to the Conscience Clause, which was formerly so much opposed, it was now asserted to be necessary. In Church schools, for the most part, the spirit of the Conscience Clause was no doubt observed; but those schools were undoubtedly pervaded by influences to which Dissenters with great reason were unwilling to subject their children. Would any noble Lord who was a member of the Established Church care to send his child to a Roman Catholic or Unitarian school, however strict the Conscience Clause then in operation might be? He was sure no noble Lord would willingly run the risk involved in doing such a thing. The Nonconformists, on the same principle, preferred board schools for their children, because they felt that there they would be protected. But by the extension of the powers of the Guardians and Town Councils under this Bill the injustice previously felt by the Nonconformists was materially aggravated, and it was not surprising that they should look on the Bill with disfavour; it was not, however, till the Government accepted Amendments still more hostile to their interests that they had opposed the measure in any really determined spirit. Whatever faults it might have, the school-board system was accepted by the Dissenters, and it was only natural that their distrust should be excited when the Government accepted the Amendments referred to. When the subject was discussed in 1870 it was argued that the local contributions might be looked upon as the means of providing the religious part of education, and the Government grant as the means of providing the secular part; and the great objection raised to the present Bill was that under it they might have the denominational schools entirely supported from grants out of the taxes. The clergyman of a rural parish would increase his school fees; with the assistance of the compulsory system he might compel the attendance of the children; if the parents could not pay the fees the Guardians would have to find the money; and thus the denominational system would be maintained by State funds without any local contributions. In the Bill of the Government there was a very considerable defect in respect to compulsion. Town Councils, if they thought proper, would be able at once to frame compulsory bye-laws, and Boards of Guardians would be required to appoint committees to compel school attendance up to the age of 10; but between the ages of 10 and 14 compulsion could only be adopted on the requisition of the inhabitants of the parish. Now he believed it would be found that just in proportion as a parish needed a compulsory system would there be an objection to it among the inhabitants. He admitted it was a great improvement to provide, as the Bill did, that a child must be educated up to the age of 10; but in a parish without compulsory bye-laws the child might then escape from all education if he either obtained a certificate of having passed an examination in Standard IVto which he had no objection-or had a certificate showing that he had attended school for 125 days during the year. Now he wanted to know why all children should not be required to pass a standard of proficiency ?-especially when they remembered how careless many parents were in regard to the education their children received. Irregular attendance at school was one of the greatest difficulties against which teachers had to struggle; and he thought they should require that the child should have been regular and diligent in his attendance. An attendance of 125 days was quite insufficient; and, moreover, the fixing of the minimum number of attendances by Act of Parliament had this evil effect, that the parents and children always seized on the minimum, and made it their maximum, contenting themselves with doing only what was absolutely necessary to obtain the object for which the conditions were imposed. Again, if the House was earnest about education, they ought not to limit to the age of 10. Canon Norris, one of the most eminent Inspectors, had made a special inquiry as | would have been ready to support it; to the hold which the elementary educa- but, to the best of his judgment, the tion given in the schools had had on the Government had taken a wiser course. working classes in Staffordshire, and he They had done well, when it became showed that just in proportion as a child necessary that compulsion should be left school at an early age did he loose resorted to, to try the experiment of inall, or nearly all, the benefit he had direct compulsion; if that failed, direct received as far as regarded the elements compulsion could be resorted to. If the of instruction. They ought to compel provisions of this Bill were entirely and attendances at least up to the age of 13, sincerely carried out throughout the and more than attendance for 125 days country, he believed they would go a in the year should be exacted from long way to avert the necessity for children who were relieved from the stronger measures. There was one point necessity of passing an examination in in the Bill which was worthy of all the Fourth Standard. In conclusion, he praise, and that was the proposal to put thought it was of little advantage making Boards of Guardians in the position of speeches on the second reading of the school boards, so as to make it less Bill unless they were followed up by necessary that school boards should be Amendments in Committee; but as the adopted all over the country. He did noble Duke had informed them that the not join in the objection felt to school Committee would be taken on Thursday, boards by some with whom he generally proper time would not be allowed for agreed. He did not object to school putting Notices of Amendments on the boards. On the contrary, he believed, Paper. if we were to have a system of education extended to the whole population, and especially to the populous parts of the country, school boards would be found one of the most effective means of carrying out that object. He agreed with the opinion, so strongly expressed by the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Ripon), that there ought not to be any feeling of antagonism between school boards and voluntary schools, but that they ought to work harmoniously together for the promotion of a common end. He believed that there were two things at the root of the objection to school boards-In the first place, they had been found much more costly than they ought or needed to be; but still a greater objection was the general feeling that under these school boards, according to the present state of the law, the children could not receive the religious instruction which they ought to receive, and which the parents generally desired. The country generally was in favour of the Act of 1870, with the exception of its inadequate provisions on the subject of religious instruction. In his judgment and conscience he entirely agreed with what had been said so eloquently by the most rev. Prelate (the Archbishop of Canterbury) as to the feeling of the country on this subject. He had hoped that we might have had in this Bill a provision requiring that religious instruction should be given in all board schools; and when he expressed that LORD HAMPTON said, he looked upon the Act of 1870 as a great measure, and he felt grateful to the Government that had brought it in; and one of the reasons why he was disposed to give this Bill a most cordial support was, because he regarded it as a worthy sequel to that Act. But he must join those who had preceded him, in expressing his deep regret that what he believed to be the most important measure of the present Session should have been brought before their Lordships at so late a period of the Session-at a time, indeed, so late that it was utterly impossible to consider it adequately. He did not impute blame to his noble Friends on the Treasury Bench-they had been the victims of circumstances. The one cause which more than any other had led to this Bill being sent up to their Lordships so near to the close of the Session was, the unduly warm discussions which arose in the other House of Parliament on the clause for the dissolution of school boards in certain cases. He could not understand how by any Party in the House of Commons that clause could have been considered worth the angry feeling and waste of time to which it had led. With regard to the Bill itself, he looked upon it as a most valuable step towards the completion of the general education of the country. If Her Majesty's Government had decided to introduce into the Bill a provision for direct compulsion he opinion he distinctly and emphatically | boards upon the subject of religious disclaimed the idea of speaking with any education. Out of 284 school boards, view to the exclusive interests of the 62, while permitting the reading of the Church of England-he was speaking in Bible, did not allow any note or comthe interests of no particular Church; ment, 16 forbad the reading or explainand the humble efforts he had made in ing of the Bible, and 39 forbad all reliformer years to promote education justi- gious observance or instruction in confied him when he said that he was not nection with the ordinary work of the speaking in the interest of any particular school, or by any member of the school denomination. He spoke in the cause staff. Surely, it was not seemly or right of Religion and Christianity. He was that, under the legislation of this counthe last man who would urge any system try, it should be in the power of any which would violate the scruples of Non- handful of men, exercising a brief auconformists;-he had always taken a thority in any district, thus to exclude different line. But the Roman Catholics from the teaching of the rising generain Ireland had religious instruction in tion that knowledge without which edutheir schools; if their Lordships turned cation was worth very little. It was to the Presbyterians of Scotland, they satisfactory, however, that while 117 would find there was religious instruction boards had thus neglected the teaching in their schools; and in England he of religion, the remainder, 167 in numventured to say that the national sys-ber, had in various ways, as in the case tem, whatever it might be, ought not to be one which excluded religion. They were indebted to a Member of the House of Commons for having moved for a Return of the religious instruction in the board schools. He doubted whether it was as generally known to the public as it was to their Lordships what the case was with the great School Board of London. The Lord President, in his opening speech, spoke in high terms, and very justly, of the School Board of London. Well, this Resolution was passed by that School Board "That, in the schools provided by the Board, the Bible shall be read, and there shall be given such explanations and such instructions therefrom in the principles of morality and religion as are suited to the capacity of the children, provided always that in such explanations and instructions the provisions of the Act, the 7th and 14th, are strictly observed both in letter and spirit, and that no attempt be made in any such schools to attach the children to any denomination." When the London School Board had passed such a Resolution, the Government might well have regarded it as a precedent in this Bill. On the other hand, the Birmingham school board, as he learnt by a letter from a clergyman there, banished all religious teaching from its schools "No Board teacher was allowed either to read or to teach the Bible, and, in fact, as far as the Board teaching was concerned, the name of God must not be mentioned." Some statistics prepared by the National of the London School Board, laid down by certain rules that religion should be taught. Here was a clear proof, by a numerical majority, that the country was in favour of religious teaching, and any Government which made a change in this respect would receive the general support of the country. The question became more important when they considered the rapid increase of board schools as compared with voluntary schools. He accepted this as a valuable Bill to the extent to which it went; but he deeply lamented the omission as to if the Government had introduced clauses religious education, his belief being that of a moderate character, providing that religion should be taught in all our board schools that decision would have been in general harmony with the opinion of the nation. This subject could not and would not rest where it was. country would not be satisfied as long as it was in the power of any set of men to deny to the children of the humbler classes the benefits of religious education. The EARL FORTESCUE, as a consistent Liberal, saw no just reason for opposing the provision that a majority of the inhabitants should be able, if they wished, to get rid of a school board now that other means of compulsory education were provided by legislation. School boards had done, and were doing, a useful work, but he agreed that they were much more costly than they might be or ought to be; and great part of this cost arose from the system of election. He suggested, in 1870, that that system originally proposed for imposing that duty on the school boards, which had no officers like the relieving officers of the Board of Guardians, both competent and available for inquiring into the circumstances of the parents. LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY thanked the noble Duke for bringing in the Bill, which would be accepted as a fulfilment in part of the promise made by the Government to promote religious education. LORD WAVENEY bore testimony from his own experience to the value which the provisions in the Bill relating to industrial schools were calculated to confer. 'Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next. POLLUTION OF RIVERS BILL—(No. 207.) (The Marquess of Salisbury.) SECOND READING. Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read. might be assimilated to the mode of electing Boards of Guardians-a system which worked so satisfactorily that in 1874 and 1875 only four cases of contested elections had required inquiring into by the Local Government Board during each year; and which had been declared to be cheap and economical by more than 400 school boards in their Memorial to the Lord President complaining of the immense cost of the present system of election. It should be remembered that a large majority of the ratepayers voted under the Poor Law system of sending a few clerks round to collect the votes of the many voters; while, in spite of all efforts to excite and stimulate the voters, comparatively few voters voted under the school-board system of obliging the many voters to go and get their votes recorded at the polling booth by the few clerks. One cause of the unpopularity of school boards was the great expense incurred by them in elections and for non-educational purposes. He objected to those provisions in the present Bill that broke down the distinction between pauperism and independence. He was referring to what he might call the gushing and sentimental clauses about paying the school fees of the children of poor parents without considering it as relief given to those parents; about founding scholarships for children of 10 years old-a sort of yearling races; and, above all, about feeding children at the public expense in day industrial schools. Such a system combined the different disadvantages of legal relief and of private charity, without the advantages of either. Such relief would be grudgingly given and thanklessly received. It was undesirable in itself, and very dangerous as a precedent. He wished, however, to bear his testimony to the value of the clauses which dealt with poor schools, and which in his judgment would not lead to the results anticipated by his noble Friend the late Foreign Secretary. In conclusion, the noble Earl expressed his gratitude to the Govern- sixth year of the reign of Her most Excellent ment for the tardy, but not too tardy, Majesty Queen Victoria, relating to the regis repeal of the 25th clause and the substi-tration of Births and Deaths in Ireland-Was tution of the Board of Guardians as the presented by The Earl of Donoughmore; body for ascertaining the ability of read 1. (No. 208.) parents and for paying the school fees for the children. He could claim consistency in taking that course, because he had protested against the system as THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, it was very much the same measure which had passed the House last year, and was lost in the general confusion which usually attended the termination of the Session in the other House. It did not go quite so far as that measure, but it proposed to effect three objects-the exclusion of solid matter and of sewage from rivers as well as all new sources of pollution arising from manufactures and mines. Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next. REGISTRATION OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS (IRELAND) AMENDMENT BILL [H.L.] A Bill to amend the Act passed in the twenty House adjourned at half-past Nine o'clock till To-morrow, Two o'clock. |