LORD ROSEBERY ON THE EDUCATION BILL.
TORD ROSEBERY impresses us as rather too arti- ficial in speeches where he deals with a solid subject like the Education Bill. He seems to say to himself, 'I must make some concessions or I shall not seem to be dis- cussing the subject in an impartial spirit,' but when he comes to ask himself what those concessions shall be, he does not seem to choose them with any great care, having regard to the subject in hand, but in a. random way, as if he had selected them for the purpose of making an im- pression of candour rather than because they had really re- commended themselves to his judgment. And so it happens that his concessions sometimes turn out to be more or less fatal to his treatment of the matter in band. Thus in his speech at Rochdale on Tuesday on the Education Bill, he said, "I believe that if the Government had had the courage of their convictions, and had done directly what by a side- wind they wish to do,—get rid of the School Boards altogether,—there might have been some excuse in con- sistency and principle for the proposal they are now making." Well, that seems to us to knock the whole bottom out of his speech. It is an admission that there is nothing essential to a sound Education policy in the election of the Education Authority expressly ad hoc, since an Education Authority not elected expressly ad hoc might do not less well, if not even better, than one elected solely for educational purposes. And if that be admitted, it seems absolutely childish to complain that the Government do not propose to extinguish existing School Boards which have done their work thoroughly and satisfactorily, but only to put them in a closer relation than they now hold to the local wants and wishes of the county in which they are at work. What is the express declaration of the Govern- ment with relation to the whole purpose and intention of Ithe Education Bill ? It is contained in the second clause- , and runs thus :—" It shall be the duty of the EducatioD Authority to supplement awl not to supplant such t xisting organisations for educational purposes, as for the time being supply efficient instruction," and this, therefore, appear* to be the provision with which Lord Rosebery wages war. If that very reasonable and in the best sense conservative principle had not been in the Bill, he would have conceded that " there might have been some excuse in consistency and principle for the proposal they are now making." In other word, if they had not proposed to leave well alone, they might have had a case, but as they have declared their wish to leave well alone, they are self-condemned. That is Lord Rosebery's opinion, and we confess that it seems to us to vitiate the whole of his speech, and to stamp it as the speech of an amateur partisan and not the speech of a statesman. Whatever attack Mr. Arland may make on the Bill, he will certainly not give himself away as Lord Rosebery has given himself away. And Lord Rosebery made an even further admission of which the Government will certainly take advantage. He said that if the County Councils had existed in Mr. Forster's time it is almost certain that the Government of that day would have availed themselves of them for starting the new education of the country. Well, if so, why not avail themselves of then now for amending, and infusing new life, into such educa- tional institutions,—and only such educational institu- tions,—as clearly need fresh life and vigour; in other words, such as need to be" supplemented " and not " to be sup- planted" ? Lord Rosebery has attacked the Education BilL in the spirit of a politician who wishes to seene impartial, rather than to be impartial. His large concessions are en- tirely inconsistent with the whole tenour of his invective_ For instance, he declares, without the smallest attempt to. produce evidence, that " by this Bill, they [the Govern- ment] propose not merely to capture the School Boards. they propose to strangle the School Boards, to degrade the School Boards, and if possible to extinguish the School Boards," which is just what they expressly declare their wish not to do. What language can be odder in a speaker who had just declared that if they had boldly extinguished the School Boards out and out, there might have been a good deal of excuse for theirs measure ?
The only substantial point which Lord Rosebery made- against the Bill, was made from the point of view which the Duke of Devonshire took up in November last, when he expressed his conviction that no one would propose to give a grant to the poor schools, whether voluntary schools or Board-schools, which would not also be given ( qually to the richer and effective Board-schools. As against the Duke of, Devonshire's assumption, Lord Rosebery is, of course, per- fectly successful in proving that the Bill is not what the President of the Council thought that it ought to have been. But for our own parts we never could understand the Duke of Devonshire's position. The object of the Bill• was, we had always understood, to help those schools which had done well and had received grants from the Education Department, but had not had sufficient resources• of their own to make their schools all they ought to be, and to pay their teachers as such teachers ought to be paid. Now, no one could say this of the School Boards in rich and busy districts of the country. They had the rates to go to, and they had freely gone to the rates, and had made their schools, out of the pockets of the ratepayers, both very efficient and sometimes very expensive schools. What possible justification could there be for giving to such schools, already richly supplied from the rates, the same aid, which schools that were either entirely without access to the rates, or else in districts so poor that they knew they could not increase the rate with- out a bitter outcry from the ratepayers, greatly needed ? The Bill was brought in to help poor schools which were doing good work with insufficient means, not to take coals to Newcastle, or give grants to schools which had already established themselves as excellent educa- tional agencies at the expense of the ratepayers. Lord Rosebery no doubt wakes the Duke of Devonshire's position look foolish, but then the Duke of Devonshire's position was never in any degree consistent with this essential object and primary purpose of the Bill.
Of course Lard Rosebery makes agreat deal of the complaint that the new grant to poor schools is not to be accompanied by any local control. But the new Education. Authority will exert a county control, and therefore more or less a local control, while the old grants were not accom- panied by any kind of local control, and were perhaps not unfrequently none the worse for that. They were subject to the control of the Education Department, a pretty severe control, and one which made it impossible for even a voluntary school to ignore the secular education of the children or to make it perfunctory and slovenly. With the new Education Authority to see that the teaching follows the drift of the special county interests, we believe that the provision for local control will be quite as adequate as it ought to be. Nothing could be more mischievous than to turn the voluntary schools' management into a quarrel- some Board in which the existing managers would go one way and the elected managers the other.
However, the radical vice of all the attacks upon this Bill, in which Lord Rosebery's attack is pre-eminent, is the assumption which pervades them, that the new Educa- tion Authority will be eager to spoil the teaching and not to improve it. Of course with that assumption it is very easy to show that the Bill will fail ; but with that assumption it would have been still easier to show that the old School Boards would have failed. We do not believe for a moment that either the Borough Councils or the County Councils will be indifferent to the education of the people. And in the provision that they may associate themselves with all but an equal number of edu- cational experts, we have a security for their becoming a very adequate as well as a very responsible educational 1.nely. It would be simply impossible for them to choose from outside persons not interested in education. Public opinion would be far too strong for them there. And with the inclusion of a large minority of earnest educa- tionalists we believe that the new Education Authority will be as deeply interested in education as the best existing School Boards, and a'great deal more sensitive to the interests and wishes of the people.
As for Lord Rosebery's attack on the twenty-seventh clause of the Bill,—the religious clause,—it is extremely feeble. He speaks as if it compelled the parents who are contented with the religious instruction as it is, to ask for strictly denominational instruction. Of course, it does nothing of the kind. It will remedy a grievance of the Catholic children attending Board-schools, and it will give he Nonconformist schools in Wales full power to adapt t heir religious teaching to the wishes of the Methodist and Baptist and other denominations so prevalent in Wales, but for the most part it will, we believe, leave the religious teaching of the schools, where it is good and effective, exactly what it now is. What those who utter the out- ery against the new religious provisions really wish is to impose a compulsory undenominationalism on parents rho earnestly wish for denominational teaching for their children. Iu short, they desire to enforce the special bigotry of the nineteenth century rather than to secure parental responsibility for the free teaching to their children of their own religious convictions.
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