Mr. Chamberlain made a very strong appeal to the Govern-
ment to establish free schools, which he proposes to do without interfering with the denominational schools, by adding the usual fees for attendance to the Government grant. This will involve a sacrifice of nearly two millions by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which he is not at all likely, we think, to have at his disposal in a year when a great effort is to be made to strengthen the Navy. But the most serious objection to it is that it really exempts every parent from all special sacrifice for the education of his own children, and puts him, in fact, as regards such sacrifice, in precisely the position of a child- less parent. Now, it is quite reasonable to say that education is so considerable an object for the State, and that society gains so much by it, that every citizen should be taxed to secure a system of sound elementary education ; but it is hardly reasonable to say that the childless parent should: be taxed as heavily as the parent who has all the moral satisfaction, and all the prospect of ultimate gain, which parents obtain from their children. The strong argument on the other side,—that the waste of time and mechanical effort necessary to collect the school-fees is an enormous subtraction from. the efficiency of the sehools,—was, of course, very effectively put by Mr. Chamberlain, and we concede that it has great forme; but we do not attach any weight to the argument that in almost all other countries elementary education is free. Perhaps so ; but in almost all other countries the parent feels both less respon- sibility for his child's education and less pride in it than he does in the United Kingdom, where he helps to pay for it himself.
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