The new Education Bill came up for second reading in
the House of Commons on Wednesday. Criticism -was chiefly directed not so much against the tardy abolition of " half-timers " in the cotton industry as against the proposal that every boy and girl between the ages of fourteen and eighteen should be compelled to attend day continuation schools for 320 hours in the year. It has been pro., posed as an alternative that the children showing promise should be selected to receive a complete secondary education. Mr. Father defended his Bill in a manly and thoughtful speech. The ohm' f evil to be remedied was, he said, the continual wastage of ability, of character, and of physique, due to the fact that most children after leaving the elementary schools are subject to no sort of die-. interested supervision. Young people had• a right to be educated. The State must fix a minimum of education for them, and see that they all receive it. Employers must recognize that education, like factory legislation, was a legitimate tax on their industry. The eventual cost of the scheme would be about £9,000,000 a year, to which the proposed nursery schools world add £900,000' a year.
Previous page
