to the Bill will be found in that which to us appears to be one of its cardinal merits-that it aims at maintaining the voluntary schools, recognises them as a permanent and essential part of the national provision for elementary education, and seeks to place them in a position of financial and educational equality with the schools provided out of the rates.

Part III of the Bill enacts that the new local education authorities may, throughout their respective areas, take over the duties of school-boards. Where they do so, the boards will cease to exist; and the new authority will maintain, and also control, secular education in all public elementary schools, whether provided by them or not. In the case of voluntary schools, the local education authority will have power to insist on the carryingout of any directions they may give as to secular instruction; to inspect the schools and audit the managers' accounts; to veto, on educational grounds, the appointment of teachers; to insist, subject to a reference to the Board of Education, on any reasonable alterations and improvements in the buildings, which will have to be made at the expense of the managers, who must also keep the buildings in good repair'; lastly, to appoint additional managers, 'so that the number of the persons so appointed, if more than one, does not exceed one-third of the whole number of managers.' In return for these important powers, the local authority will be expected to undertake the whole charge of maintaining the schools under their control in a state of educational efficiency.

The bargain appears to us to be a fair one. So far as the Church of England is concerned, it represents, in spirit, if not in every detail, the articles of settlement put forward by a joint committee of the two Convocations which sat last summer. The concessions made by the friends and supporters of voluntary schools are very large. They involve the entire surrender of all power which is capable of abuse. Wherever the new system comes into force, the one-man school'-the school of which a single overbearing clerical manager can speak as 'mine'-may possibly continue as a private establishment, but as a public elementary school will disappear altogether. But no surrender of principle is asked. The selection of teachers, subject, as is proper, to the veto of the local

authority upon the appointment of any professionally inefficient candidate, remains with the managers; and so does the control of the religious teaching. The outsiders appointed to take part in the management are not to be more than a third of the whole number. The schools thus controlled will remain institutions giving definite religious teaching of the kind desired by those who built and will still maintain the fabrics; but they will be brought into line educationally with the best schools in the locality.

The benefit thus conferred on the children of the nation, of whom three millions are still educated in voluntary schools, is of incalculable importance. It means nothing less than the relaying, well and truly, of the foundation of our educational system, which, for many years, has been growing more and more uneven and distorted. The Liberation Society and kindred bodies have raised preliminary protests, and are organising more serious opposition. But even they do not venture at this time of day to suggest that nothing should be done to improve the position of the voluntary schools. All that they can do is to deny that the Government Bill offers any real or effective public control' in return for the maintenance offered to those schools. But a perusal of the above-mentioned conditions attached to the acceptance by the local authority of the burden of maintenance will convince any fair-minded person of the hollowness of this objection. The power of the purse' will rest with the authority; to refuse to conform to its views as to the requisites of a sound secular education would be a suicidal proceeding on the part of managers of voluntary schools. This is so obvious that the attempt, if made, to persuade the country of the contrary will be made with the certainty of failure. The fear is rather that local authorities animated by Liberationist principles may sometimes exact conditions, for instance, in regard to buildings, which it may be very difficult, if not impossible, for managers of voluntary schools to perform. But this is a risk which must be faced; and there will be an appeal to the Board of Education.

Why then should there be any serious qualification of the satisfaction with which the Government Bill is regarded on their own side, as was shown by the debate on the first

reading, and expressed by independent elementary educationists in the resolution of general commendation passed at the meeting of the National Union of Teachers at Bristol? The single authority is approved, so far as it goes; the composition of that authority is practically unchallenged, even by the National Union of Teachers, which is known to contain many theoretical partisans of direct ad hoc election; the equalisation of the position of all public elementary schools meets with equal approbation. The one radical defect in the Bill is the clause (5) which makes the provisions dealing with elementary education optional, or adoptive, at the discretion of the local authority.

It is difficult to exaggerate the potential mischief contained in this clause. It was intended, if we are to accept the weak defence given of it in Mr Balfour's speech, as a means of avoiding the production of irritation in places where school-boards are strong and, through the good work they have done, have won a powerful hold upon public sentiment. But obviously it is precisely in those parts of the country where school-boards are strong and have worked with energy that the pressure upon voluntary schools is most severe, and the need of rectifying the lop-sided and distorted condition of elementary education is most clearly established. What is wanted, we need hardly say, is not a levelling down, but a levelling up of the two classes of elementary schools in respect of secular efficiency. If the municipal authority of such places is left to decide for itself whether it will take over the work of the school-board and exercise a general control over all public elementary schools within its area or not, it will inevitably happen in many cases that the new responsibility will be declined, as involving a good deal of unpopularity as well as additional trouble. The result is that there will be large areas in which the vices of the present oppressive competition between schools of different classes are maintained and aggravated, side by side with others, in which the new authorities are using all the powers placed at their disposal by Parliament for the creation of a well co-ordinated system of education, resting upon a firm and even foundation.

It seems hardly conceivable that Parliament will become responsible for creating a new system full of such vast

and flagrant anomalies. No one, so far as we have seen, has had a word to say in favour of the adoptive clause (5) of the Government Bill. Sir Richard Jebb, on the night of the first reading, in an excellent speech, exhibited the gravity of the disfigurement which it would introduce into the settlement attempted by the Bill. His protest on this point, coupled as it was with a cordially—and quite justly-favourable analysis of the general scope of the Bill, was echoed by several other speakers, and it has been strongly sustained by the National Union of Teachers. Mr Balfour has subsequently expressed, in his letter to Mr Plummer (Times,' April 1st), the strong hope that the local authorities will decide in favour of taking over the charge of elementary education. If this is so desirable, it would surely be better to put it out of their power to refuse.

Happily, as we have said, the offending clause can be cut out without any alteration of the general structure of the Bill, with the spirit of which, indeed, it seems curiously at variance. If it is excised, the Government may count on carrying through Parliament, with the exercise of a normal amount of resolution, a settlement of the education problem on broad lines which will not soon be disturbed. Until it is excised, or an assurance given that that fate awaits it, ministers are likely to find that support will be but half-hearted, and that the wheels of legislation will run heavily. An early intimation that they have recognised the decisive manifestation of feeling among their supporters and among independent educationists in regard to the adoptive clause would liberate an amount of genuine enthusiasm for the Bill, before which the opposition to it would speedily break down. The Government have practically staked their legislative reputation on this measure, brought in, as it has been, not by a subordinate Minister, but by the Leader of the House of Commons. If they choose, they may, by enacting a great and beneficent educational reform, redeem the memory of a long series of weaknesses and failures. They cannot afford to neglect the one means of securing that their Education Bill shall rank as a first-class legislative achievement.

INDEX

TO THE

HUNDRED AND NINETY-FIFTH VOLUME OF
THE QUARTERLY REVIEW.

[Titles of Articles are printed in heavier type.]

2 x