In my own diocese the school-houses into the open, and in a large and generous could not be replaced for less than spirit show her willingness and her £300,000. The Bill provides that in capacity to offer terms which all true any transferred school the teachers friends of education may be able to in the school at the time of such transfer accept without detriment to conscience shall continue to hold office by the same or justice. I beg to move. tenure and on the same terms and conditions, as far as they are consistent with the terms of this Act, as before the

desire to act fairly all round, have cumbered the discussion and would have cumbered the ultimate working of various measures which have at different times been before the House.

May I, in nakedest outline, remind your Lordships of the statistical condition of our problem as it stands? We have in England, roughly, 20,500 elementary schools. Of this number about 6,900 are provided, or council schools, whose fabric belongs to the State, and about 13,500 belongs to the State, and about 13,500 are non-provided, or, to use the official term which still runs, voluntary schools belonging to trustees or private persons. So that the voluntary schools out-number the provided schools by about two to one. Owing to the fact that the provided schools are bigger than the others, and stand mainly in the towns, the relative number of children in the two classes of schools does not correspond to the number of the buildings. In the provided schools in round numbers there are 2,812,000 children, in the non-provided schools 2,900,000 children, or very nearly half and half. Now at length, after many years in which it was otherwise, there is a slight majority of children in the provided schools. It is out of the dual system of ownership, and indirectly from differences of religious character, that our present difficulties arise.

In the pause, before its consideration by the House of Commons, a proposal emanating-shall I say?-from the perfervidum ingenium of the Celt, rather than from the slower brain of the Saxon, is laid on the Table for our consideration.

If the public Press be a fair criterion of general opinion of a prima facie sort upon this proposal, what is now suggested to controversialists who are ordinarily wide us seems to be regarded favourably by apart. A proposal which virtually, with whatever safeguarding phrases, brings into one camp The Times and the Daily News, the Morning Post and the British Weekly, the Yorkshire Post and the Manchester Guardian-I could easily enlarge the list cannot altogether be contemptuously regarded either in this House or elsewhere. The proposals in this Bill are large, simple, far-reaching for a rearrangement-I prefer that word to the term bargain whereby all schools, broadly speaking, shall become provided schools, and all schools shall offer freedom of religious choice both to the parents of the children and to the teachers in the schools. Disencumbered of all detail, the Bill comes to that. If that idea meets with such favour as has been apparently shown to it outside, I personally find it impossible in my keen anxiety for a settlement of this question, to regard it with an unfriendly eye, although the regard must needs be somewhat critical.

Various attempts have been made to solve these difficulties in a manner which would be fair to the existing interestsinterests of parents, teachers, trustees, subscribers, and the ratepayers at large -and which would also be broadly acceptable to the whole people. Those endeavours have so far proved unsuccessful. A fresh attempt is now before the House of Commons on the initiative of the Government. I am bound to say that, as far as I can judge, all the evidence goes to show that these proposals as they stand are even less acceptable to the public than the previous endeavours that have been made. Objections are coming in from the local authorities, from the teachers, from trustees and managers of existing schools, and from educational experts of every kind. How ever excellent the intention, it does not appear that there is any very keen for a anxiety in any weighty quarter to pass a mere that Bill into law as it now stands. controversy

I speak throughout for myself alone. Some of those whom I most respect, whose counsel I am most desirous ordinarily of acting by, differ from me on the subject; and it is only, I believe, courteous consideration for myself or for my office which has in some quarters restrained a more vehement expression of that opinion. I recognise that courtesy and desire to call attention to it now lest it should be supposed that I claim to be carrying with me the opinion of all those with whom I should ordinarily act in such matters. I should be glad if those who differ from me would say their say on the subject; and I will myself be perfectly frank and straightforward with the House and those outside. Every serious, thoughtful, observant man must surely be wishful settlement now - not from sense of weariness of this though that is a real factor

in

in our common life and thought-but | mere force of circumstances, arising from 'n public grounds of the deepest and the fact of its having been found practilargest kind in behalf of education itself. cally impossible for people to come to The present uncertainty tells upon local an agreement on a difficulty which cannot authorities, upon managers, upon sub- be perpetually, continuously, and scribers to our schools and their fabrics, definitely allowed to stand across the path and very markedly upon the teachers. of our educational life. Is that a mere In all these ways the present uncertainty spectre, the creation of a nervous imaginais distinctly hampering and hindering tion? I try sometimes to think so, and educational advance both in town and I wish I could find it was. Of the introcountry schools. duction of a definitely secular system as on the part of any

an overt act

Then I plead for a settlement on behalf of the strength and the dignity of responsible Government or responsible our municipal and local life. People body of leading men, I imagine we need have no fear. No one would ought to be elected to our positions of trust in town and country because they categorically propose, or, if they did. are the best men rather than on partisan have the slightest chance of carrying, lines, whether political or denomina- proposition of that kind. But arrangetional; and at this moment I know for ments might very easily be made for the sake of peace. in default of certain of good men who would readily serve in these public capacities, but will agreement, which would force us into not face the strife and controversy which such a system indirectly, and we might is at present necessarily involved in find ourselves subjected to it against what would practically be everybody's wish. One of the very gravest disasters would then have occurred which, in my judgment, could at present befall our land. I am predisposed, therefore, to look with a friendly eye on any even tolerable proposal which might bring us peace without the sacrifice of fundamental principle.

such candidature. Public interests are

I think, my Lords, we sometimes forget that as practical men striving for a really workable solution we have perforce to consider in this matter not

therefore suffering in a very marked degree by the continuance of this controversy. But, above all, do I desire to a settlement for the sake of our moral and religious work. There never was a time in the history of our country when in social, economic, religious, and moral questions it was more necessary that men who really care, men who are actuated by high motives. men who are inspired by genuine zeal, should work together for what is pure and strong and true. We have to face dishonesty of different kinds-only what we think reasonable, but what greed of gain, dark forms of impurity, and many other evils-rife in the land to-day. We want, in these matters, to stand side by side with those above all whose main interest lies in the moral and religious side of our common life, and it is simply heartbreaking that so many should be sundered because of this one question which keeps them apart. For all these reasons I am predisposed to look with favour upon any suggestion of this kind.

But besides all that, there is a gaunt spectre in the background-namely, the pushing of religious teaching outside our elementary schools altogether. Such a course would be-everybody admits itright against the wish of the mass of the English people, whatever their denomination or their political connection. If it comes about at all, it will come about by

what other people from their point of view think reasonable. In a letter which I read only this morning I find these words from a shrewd and far-seeing thinker

"We should be a little nearer a settlement if those who take part in the controversy could bring themselves to see that it is of no use to go on preaching the reasonableness of our own solution and the unreasonableness of every other. The thing that it concerns us to know is not whether people think wisely or unwisely, but whether they think resolutelynot whether they can defend their formula by sound argument, but whether they are de termined to stand by it."

That may not be a very heroic sentiment, but I think it is a true one in endeavouring to find the practical sclution of a matter of this kind. We must try, so far as is consistent with honesty and self-respect, to meet the wishes and

demands which find strong expression on the part of thinking men whether we agree with them or not.

question, I think, of all the many difficult questions which arise in connection with our educational problem. I have What demands does this proposal of freedom from tests of all those who myself all my life supported the principle try to meet? First, as the Bishop of occupy public offices in the Civil Service St. Asaph has reminded us, it tries to or in other similar public capacity. I meet the demand for complete think that is accepted now by most public control. All schools, speaking people, and I confess I have come to generally, are to become pro- admit it myself even for teachers in vided schools. I am personally by their professional capacity. But we must no means ready to admit that our beware of making that principle, I had voluntary schools now, inspected by almost said, ridiculous, by saying that the Government, by the local authority, while we bid or encourage men or women overhauled at every turn, are not for as part of their daily work to teach religion, all reasonable and practical purposes, we absolutely decline to let anybody under a complete system of public control; find out whether or not they have by but on the very principle which I have training, experience, or knowledge, any just laid down, I am obliged to admit fitness for the task. That seems to me to that a great many people do not think be a quite unreasonable following out in a so; and we ought to try, in every way fanciful direction of the large and sound short of the abandonment of principle, principle of the freedom of the responto meet the genuine sentiments to sible public man from tests of a religious, which they give expression, whether and especially of a denominational, kind.

we think those sentiments reasonable

or not.

As I read this Bill, the proposals

mind, intensely valuable. No one else can adequately take the place of that teacher, if he be a fit person, in giving religious teaching. To sever the secular teacher from the religious teacher, if such severance can be avoided, seems to me to be harmful in the extreme. The Bill also

Personally, I believe in the exercise sketched to us provide first for keeping of public control in quite other ways the suitable teacher, if he so wishes, than by a centralised bureaucracy. I as the main agent in all branches of look forward to a far wider re-establish-education, including what we distinctively ment before very long of real local call religious teaching. That is, to my managers who shall be managers in fact as well as in name, who shall be completely popularly elected and shall have real power to manage, under proper supervision and appeal, the schools of which they are managers. I believe that by that means we shall securely enlist what at present we are in danger of forfeiting, the local interest of our best men. I am quite certain there is grave peril in the opposite state of things. Some local education authorities are acting wisely by deputing large powers to local managers. Others from economic or other reasons are weekly or monthly diminishing the responsibilities which belong to local managers, and by that means are quietly, I am afraid, tending to impair, if not to kill, that local interest which is vital to the real success of our schools throughout the land. Anyhow, this Bill gives in explicit terms complete public control, and admits the principle. Then the Bill admits the principle of the freedom of the teacher as such from religious tests. That is the most difficult

provides for distinguishing, so to speak, from tests is as such guaranteed, and between the teacher, whose freedom the teacher of religious knowledge. Only when a teacher offers himself either for the development of that teaching for the teaching of Holy Scripture or in a definitely denominational direction would he be a person who would give religious teaching.

Thus the teacher would approach one part of his work simply as a professional teacher having a complete guarantee against any inquiry of a religious or denominational kind,

other than those which refer to his moral character and the like, and he would

approach the other part as a further duty which he is qualified or anxious to perform, but which he would not be called upon to undertake unless he offered himself