15 JANUARY 1927, Page 2

- The President of the Board of Education, Lord Euitace Percy,

comes in for much criticism, most of which is unfair. Nobody outside the extreme wing of Labour, however, will disagree with the opportune and courageous address which he delivered to the North of England Education Conference at Liverpool on Thursday, January 6th. He spoke of the use of the schools for political propaganda. He refused to take too seriously the " irresponsible fanatics " who distribute scurrilous Maga- zines in the schools and marshal the children outside to sing " The Red Flag." These apostles of Marx trip up over the ponderosity of their own language ; they. are betrayed by their want of humour. The children, happily, are quite unable to understand what it is all about. But Lord Eustace felt compelled to take more seriously less irresponsible attempts to teach children political doctrines. The Labour Conference at Margate last October was guilty of a serious anti-social offence 'When it passed resolutions sanctioning a committee to determine, for instance, what part education-must play " in abolish- ing the present order of society " and in cultivating a " proletarian attitude " among -the children. Men -and women who accept from the State a commission to teach, assume a high and noble office which implies loyalty tc the authority from which that commission is drawn.

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