of different localities, and the result would be that we should meet with opposition from all quarters, and give rise to more heartburnings than if we left the matter alone. And this we assert not from a priori grounds, but from what is actually occurring in other countries at the present moment. Take the Irish system, for instance-and I am far from saying that in Committee we may not obtain great advantage from the consideration of that system, yet, whatever its merits, it has not prevented religious disputes. In the United States again, the system there adopted, notwithstanding the enormous benefits it has conferred on the community, is said to be in great danger. The question of the exclusion of the Bible in that country has been raised, and men are rallying round the point in dispute on both sides. And why is that system in danger? Because it does not do what this Bill proposes to donamely, to leave the question of religious teaching to the discretion of the school boards. In Cincinnati I am sorry to say it has been decided by the school board that the Bible shall be excluded; but among the last news from America it will be found that the Supreme Court has reversed that decision, and this has endangered the whole system. This danger could not have arisen under the present Bill, because it will be within the power of the school boards to adopt secular education if they please. In Germany we find that a different course has been taken, the exact teaching being prescribed. Almost equal difficulty has occurred there. The hon. member for Birmingham cited the case of Holland as that of a country in which the Bible is not used in schools; but I think the hon. member is hardly aware of the position of Holland in the matter. The actual state of Holland may be seen from the following statement which I have received from a Dutch gentleman, who made inquiries at instance. He is well known to many hon. members, and is well acquainted with English life, and is of Liberal opinions. I wanted to know from him the feeling of the mass of the parents. He says

my

"There is no doubt that with universal suffrage the system prevailing would hardly be kept up, and that the Bible, the catechism, and the priest in Roman Catholic parts of the country would reappear. The great hardship of having excellent denominational schools unprovided from the Exchequer simply because they teach religion is growing on many people who themselves are opposed to denominational education. Only the other day one of the

leaders of the Radical party told me he was gradually coming round to the opinion that the communes should be left free in the choice of their system, and that they should be allowed to have religion taught wherever there was a majority in its favour, with provisions to protect the minority, exactly the system I congratulate you on having proposed for England. There is no doubt that the number of schools started by Roman Catholics and Evangelicals in opposition to the Government school is steadily school teaching no religion not only leaves a gap, but tends to make the children utterly careless or even hostile to religion, looking upon the hours spent out of school with the clergy as so much wasted time irrelevant to the practical interest of life."

on the increase. It is felt that the Government

He says local disputes do not disappear, because disputes arise as to who should appoint the master; and, he adds—

"Our system leads to another dangerous consequence. At each general election the question divides the voters; it excites and inother questions being properly attended to." flames all the religious passions, and prevents I do not say that opinion is a conclusive one; but it is the opinion of an eye-witness who deserves attention, and I mention it in justification of the Government's proposal. That proposal I would have hon. members believe, has been put forward, not as an arrière pensée, but as the best means at our disposal for solving a difficult problem. We must make up our minds that nothing we can do here will prevent disputes. We may declare that the school shall be secular; we cannot declare, and we do not wish to declare, that the school shall not be taught by men who have religious feelings and opinions. My honest belief is, that if quarrels occur about anything, they will occur about the appointment of the masters. People of strong religious convictions would say that as the school is secular it will have strong rationalistic tendencies, and, consequently they will do their best to secure a religious teacher, who will give a religious tone to the school which would then be in some sense religious. I do not myself look forward to quarrels in the boards; but even if I did I should still say, pass the Bill; it is better these quarrels should occur, and that men in electing Town Councils should think about religious questions, than that ignorance should continue. But I do not believe these quarrels will happen, because I have confidence in the common sense of the country. I trust to one fact and one principle. The principle is municipal government, and the fact is the practical history of education. I do not dispute the

existence of the religious difficulty, nobody who cares about education can afford to underrate it. The religious difficulty has kept the country in comparative ignorance for ten years past; but it has been a difficulty felt, not so much by those concerned with teaching as by those who wish to concern themselves with those who are concerned with the teaching. It is a difficulty felt, not so much by the parents of the children or the masters or the school managers; for wherever there has been a parent wishing to get his child taught and a teacher ready to educate him, the difficulty has, generally speaking, been got over. Therefore, I say that, if you bring this practical work home to the school boards, and tell them it is their duty, and they must do it, and that if they fail the State will do it for them, my firm belief is that the difficulty will disappear. I will give an illustration; and will take it from a secondary school, such as many of us might send our own children to, for I want to bring this question home to ourselves, that we may deal with it as if it were our own case. I would here remind the House that these difficulties of which we make so much in the case of poor children do not arise in the case of our own children; and I doubt whether those parents have more doubt in their minds upon the subject with reference to their children than we have as regards ours. take my illustration from a letter addressed to me by Mr. Evans, of King Edward's School, Birmingham.

self-elected, and for the most part, a Conservative body-together with the headmaster, a clergyman of the Church of England, have, of scheme so liberal and so popular, have we not their own accord, devised and carried out a a right to expect an equally liberal scheme of religious instruction from the local boards constituted as proposed in the Government Bill?” That is a practical view of the case, and I really do wish my hon. friends, taking the same view of politics and belonging to the same Radical school as myself, would have a little more confidence in what I have always supposed to be one of the chief Radical tenets, and that is trust in municipal government elected by the ratepayers. As I said before, this is not so much a difficulty felt by the parents as by the ministers of religion, some of whom wish to get the children to attend certain schools while others wish to keep them away. This is where the difficulty mainly springs from; but with a school board elected by the rateinterest in the education of their children, payers-that is, by the parents taking an as they do at present, and as they will do to a greater extent in the future, we shall have those who are likely to aggravate the religious difficulty met by a cry of "Hands off; let us get education as best we can." What we should prefer is a school where the children would get Christian, though not controversial training, and in the the children would get, at least in the towns. enormous majority of cases that is what I will not deny that there are some cases in the rural parishes which require special "This school contains nearly 1,900 pupils, of attention. Some cases have come before whom more than half are Nonconformists of me in which there has been an attempt thirteen different denominations (there were made on the part of the clergyman, someseventeen a short time ago). They all receive times backed by the squire, to exercise an a considerable amount of religious instruction, and I may add that the examiners have from illegitimate influence upon the children of time to time reported very favourably on the Dissenters. Generally speaking, I may say high average attainments of the boys in divinity. in every case that has come practically Professor Lightfoot, Canon Westcott, and Dr. before me, that influence has been exercised Benson were educated here. Any parent who either to prevent these children going to a either orally or in writing should express to me his wish to withdraw his son from a religious Sunday-school, or to make them go to a lesson, on the ground of conscientious scruples, Sunday-school. Well, Clause 7 is very would be at liberty to do so. Of such permis- strong, indeed, on this point. Sorry as I sion, however, no advantage has been taken am that any such attempt should be made, except in the case of Jews, who do not attend and anxious as I am that these attempts lessons in the New Testament. The system should be discontinued, we cannot change appears to give entire satisfaction-to none more than to the Rev. C. Vince and the Rev. R. society. What more can we do than give W. Dale, who both have sons in the school. The the power of election to the parents? Hon. liberty of conscience thus allowed is not secured members may say the election of vestries is by any legal instrument or Conscience Clause, not sufficiently guarded. [An hon. MEMbut rests simply on custom, and an understandBER: The Ballot.] Well, that is a matter ing between parents and the head master." we must talk about in Committee. I am And here is the deduction Mr. Evans not aware what are the councils of the drawsCabinet on that matter, but there seems to “If, however, the governors of this school-a be an expectation that the ballot is not

I

very far in the distance, and if it should be applied in any case it might be applied in the case of these elections. We have provided that the feelings of Dissenters should be consulted and their rights protected if they care to take advantage of the means we place at their disposal; if they are careless the fault is theirs. But our Nonconformist friends tell us "This is concurrent endowment over again, and the church-rate contest over again." I wish hon. members would consider what it is they are now dealing with, and what it was they dealt with when the phrase "concurrent endowment" was invented. In the one case the matter was religion and nothing but religion; in this case it is religious accompaniments to secular instruction-the main object. Hon. members who think we must come to secular education, and nothing but secular education, have some right to say that they will act upon the principle of opposition to all concurrent endowment. I do not gather that many hon. members are prepared to go so far as that; and if they are not they are at this moment sanctioning this principle of concurrent endowment, if, indeed, it applies to education at all. There is concurrent endowment of the denominational schools at the present time. There is, likewise, concurrent endowment of the Roman Catholic and Protestant schools according to the Irish system, in praise of which we have heard so much; and there would be concurrent endowment if the proposals of the hon. member for Birmingham were carried into effect, for if you are to provide a building for religious instruction by different denominations, what is that but concurrent endowment? I think hon. gentlemen generally will find out that they can hardly apply that principle to education. We come back, then, to that which relates more to the real matter in hand-namely, the practical object aimed at by our Nonconformist friends, and the manner in which the religious question is treated by the present Bill; and I speak now not so much of Clause 14 as of Clause 7. All I can say of Clause 7 is-"Let it go into Committee, and if it can be shown that we have not carried out the principle of that clause we must amend it until the principle is carried out." That principle was in our minds the most perfect protection of the religious opinions of the Dissenters and the secularists of every parent, in a word, with regard to his views of religion or even against religion. We wished to give every

parent the most complete power to withdraw his child from any religious education of which he might disapprove, and, at the same time, we desired to provide that his child should not lose the secular instruction to which he has a right and for which the rates are paid. We think that principle is carried out by the clause; but, if it be proved to us that it is not, we must amend the clause until it does carry out the principle. I think the hon. member for Birmingham must have felt, when he was objecting to that clause, that he was making a speech which ought properly to have been delivered on the clause in Committee rather than in support of the present resolution, which has nothing to do with the clause. My belief, and I think it is shared by many members who, in other respects, take different views on this question, is that if we could make Clause 7 perfectly effective many objections to Clause 14, and also to the clause which gives power to aid denominational schools, will be removed. The key to the whole Bill, as far as it relates to the religious difficulty, is thisWe have framed Clause 7 in the belief that it is effective, and that it will give most complete protection in regard to the religious feelings of the parents. I quite admit, however, that if the Bill were to pass into law without that clause being effective it would not carry out our wishes or the wishes of the country. I must now allude to one or two other objections which I confess I was rather sorry to hear. I have seen it stated very often in the public press, and several gentlemen have likewise told me, that the Bill cannot be a good one because it aids one denomination more than it aids another—or, in other words, that it gives more assistance to the Established Church than to any other denomination. Indeed I have been sometimes told that what little I have to do with bringing in the Bill must have been done with the intention of specially aiding the Church. Well, I can only say that I am innocent of any such attempt, and of all belief that such a result would be produced. My object, and I may say our object in framing the Bill has been education and education alone. We determined that nothing we might do should discourage religion, and surely we should have been blamed if we had discouraged it. We were also determined that, while not discouraging religion, we would not treat one religious sect with greater indulgence than another. Now, I believe we have thoroughly carried