As regards the charge that the Conservatives had at one
time vigorously defended the extraction of the school-pence from parents, Sir W. Hart Dyke frankly admitted it for him- self, and said simply that he had changed his mind. The fret of enforcing the fees, the waste of time and additional labour for the masters and mistresses involved in doing so, and the irritation to parents of obliging them to attend in Court to show that they were too poor to pay the fees, were the considerations which had compelled this change of mind. For children under five years of age, who come for the con- venience of the parents rather than for any education they can get, no 10s. grant would be allowed, and for such children a charge not exceeding 2d. a week would still be permitted, if the managers chose to impose it. For children over fourteen years of age, the limit of compulsion, no 10s. grant, again, would be allowed,—perhaps the only blot on the Bill, since these are just the children who profit most by school, and whose attendance it is most desirable to encourage.
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