28 MARCH 1868, Page 2

The Duke of Marlborough introduced the Government measure on Primary

Education on Tuesday night, in the House of

Lords. The best its friends can say for it is, that " it is a very little one." Its opponents will assert that most of that little is mischievous. It proposes to appoint a sixth Secretary of State, to be called the Secretary for Education— which is not bad in itself,—but gives him nothing to do beyond what is now easily done by the President and Vice-President of the Council of Education. It proposes to stereotype by Act of Parliament the main principles—now embodied in " minutes,"— on which Government aid is extended to voluntary schools,— though altering them in two important respects at the very moment it proposes thus to stereotype them,—namely, by increas- ing the building grant again to the old 4s. the square foot of the school buildings (from the present 2s. 6d.), and by giving some aid to the smaller schools,—the schools below 65,—without sti- pulating for the employment of a certificated teacher. He pro- posed to grant aid to evening schools without stipulating that they should be in connection with day schools,—to aid purely secular schools without stipulating for religious instruction,— but to relax the " Conscience Clause " so as to make it utterly ineffectual, as we have elsewhere explained, and to enforce it only where the school is the only one in the neighbourhood available for poor children,—a point left to the discretion of " the Minister of Education." The one thing needful,—the principle of a com- pulsory rate for neglected districts,—he rejected altogether. On the whole, the noble Duke's measure effectually sustained his previous reputation.