I wish, Sir, to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to a report which has appeared in the newspapers of the 9th instant, as follows:—

"A meeting was held at Limerick on Sunday evening last, under the presidency of the Mayor, to make arrangements for a general collection at all the Roman Catholic Chapels, and at each of the masses, on St. Patrick's Day, in aid of the Fenian Prisoners, by permission of the Roman Catholic Bishop, 'who had expressed his sympathy for the sufferers;' upon which occasion the Rev. Mr. Shanahan, a Roman Catholic Priest, openly avowed himself a sympathizer with the Fenian prisoners, and concluded his speech with the following words:—'I do not exactly know what a Fenian is; but if it means love for Ireland, Ireland for the Irish, and that Irishmen ought to be able to govern themselves, I am a Fenian in my heart; and so is every Priest in Ireland; 'after which the meeting broke up with cheers for a Republic, President Grant, Stephens, and Pigott;"

and, whether Her Majesty's Government propose to take any notice of these proceedings?

Sir, no one can regret more deeply than I do that language such as is referred to in this Question has been used at a public meeting in Ireland, and for no other reason more do I regret it than this—that such language, coming from several of the persons concerned at a meeting held for an ostensibly charitable pur- pose,—namely, for the relief of the families of political prisoners, has, undoubtedly, had the effect, not unnaturally, of producing on the public mind an impression that many parties are favourable to the cause of Fenianism who, I know, are and always have been opposed to it. But with respect to the rev. gentleman, part of whose speech has been quoted in the Question put to me, I must say, on referring to a report which I hold in my hand—that however much to be regretted those words are—there yet are other words in the same speech which very considerably modify their meaning. I take it that the only way to ascertain the meaning of speakers under these circumstances is to compare the few words which have been quoted with the context. The beginning of the sentence that has been quoted is this—"I do not by any means profess myself to be a Fenian;" "but if Fenianism means"—love for Ireland, attachment to my native land, and so on, "then I am a Fenian." And farther on in the same speech the rev. gentleman said—"I hope the day is coming when we may expect just and wise legislation under a British Government." "Rome was not built in a day; and neither can we get all we want at once." "We must wait." "We must wait, and wait patiently. If justice be done to our country, we are satisfied. That is all that we "want," While regretting that intemperate language was used, so evidently open, not only to misconstruction, but to produce mischief, I yet must be permitted to say—on reading the whole of this speech—that it comes rather under the class of what has been called "heedless rhetoric," used on an occasion of excitement, than under the class of language of an intentionally treasonable character. With respect to the Bishop of Limerick, Dr. Butler—who has always been a strong opponent of Fenianism, and who has always used his influence against it—whether he has thought it right to give his permission and sanction to this collection I do not know; but I am glad to see from the newspapers, in respect to Dublin, that a letter has been addressed by his Eminence Cardinal Cullen to his clergy in which he refuses to have anything to do with these so-called charitable collections for the families of these prisoners, and in which he warns his clergy that they are a "stratagem" for the purpose of ob- taining from the country marks of approbation of the conduct of these persons and of adhesion to the cause in which they have suffered, and he advises the clergy to have nothing to do with it. That seems to me to be advice of very great weight and usefulness.

said, that the right hon. Gentleman had not stated what course Her Majesty's Government intend to take with regard to the Mayor of Limerick.

The Government are making inquiries of their own authorities into the whole of the circumstances, including the conduct of the Mayor of Limerick.

said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the structure connecting Burlington House with Piccadilly is a temporary erection; also what is the proposed destination of the colonnade recently removed from the front of Burlington House?

said, in the absence of his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, he had to state that the structure referred to in the first part of the Question of the noble Lord was purely temporary; and with regard to the colonnade, its final destination, he believed, had not yet been determined on, but the matter was receiving the careful attention of the Department concerned.

Sir, I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he will lay upon the Table an Estimate of the sum of money which will be required to purchase the sites of the ecclesiastical residences under the provisions of the 27th clause of the Irish Church Bill; and whether he will also lay upon the Table a Return of the number of ecclesiastical residences referred to in the said 27th clause, specifying the building charges affecting such residences respectively? I wish, also, to ask the right hon. Gentleman another Question on this subject, of which I have not given him notice; but I shall be glad to defer it till another day if he requests me to do so. My further Question is this—Whether he will lay on the Table an account showing the particulars of the private endowments proposed to be vested in the representative body of the Church under Clause 29; and, how he makes out the amount of such endowments to be the sum of £500,000, or thereabouts?

With respect, Sir, to the first branch of the hon. Member's Question, I have no means whatever of estimating the sum of money that would be required for the purchase of the sites of these ecclesiastical residences. I am not aware that the sites are valued apart from the buildings, nor of what amount of land, together with the actual sites of the fabrics, it may be desirable for parties to purchase. Therefore I am wholly without the means of estimating the quantity of the land or its price. All this is matter for negotiation, and all I can do is to point out the facilities for obtaining it. As to the second part of the Question—whether I will lay on the table "a Return of the number of ecclesiastical residences referred to in the said 27th clause, specifing the building charges affecting such residences respectively," all these ecclesiastical residences are already set out in the Report of the Church Commissioners of Ireland, and the building charge attaching to each residence is likewise there set out and printed for the use of Parliament and the public. For the purpose therefore of reference in every particular case the information given embraces all the particulars that the Question would require; and I do not think, therefore, it would be desirable to print it afresh, nor probably would it be asked by my hon. Friend that we should pick out and print afresh all those minute particulars which have been given already, and, I believe, with perfect accuracy. We have no means of improving the statement; but should it be the wish of my hon. Friend to have this information classified or printed in a summary form in order to deduce results—if he will be kind enough to state what is the precise object he has in view, and will communicate with my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland or myself as to the way in which it may be carried out—we shall be happy to give his suggestion our best attention. With regard to the third Question, as to the probable value of the private endowments since the year 1666, that is not capable of being made the subject of a Return. I stated, indeed, in my opening speech, that with respect to that particular item of Church property, the estimate partook so much of the nature of conjecture that it was necessary to allow a wide margin. Any inquiry as to a particular point I would readily answer were it in my power to do so; but with regard to the amount of glebe lands or any other description of property referred to in the Question, it is of so vague a character that it could not be made the subject of a Return to this House.

said, he would beg-to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether, in the recent Instructions transmitted to Naval Officers on Foreign Stations, a discretionary power is given to such Officers to obey or not the requisitions of British Diplomatic and Consular Agents for Military aid in cases of emergency, or in any other case?

Sir, there is nothing in the recent Instructions issued to Naval Officers for their guidance upon the occurrence of any matter of difficulty in a foreign port at variance with; Article 44 of the Admiralty printed instructions. That Article is in the following words:—

"The officers in command of Her Majesty's ships are to pay due regard to any requisition which may be made to them, in the absence of the Commander-in-Chief, from the Governors, and other British authorities within the limits of the station on which they are employed, for their co-operation and assistance on any necessary service, whether it be for the protection of Her Majesty's Possessions or for the benefit of the trade of Her Majesty's subjects, or otherwise, so long as the same does not interfere with or infringe any instructions they may previously have received from a superior naval authority; it being of course a general obligation on all Her Majesty's Civil and Military Officers to afford mutual aid and assistance to each other in all cases affecting the welfare of the Queen's Service. In any very urgent case, where requisitions made by Governors or other authorized persons may interfere with the Instructions under which the Officers in command of Her Majesty's Ships are acting, the Commanding Naval Officer on the spot must, in the absence of the Commander-in-Chief on a part of his station too distant to admit of reference being made to him in the first instance, very maturely weigh and consider the relative importance and urgency of any such required service, as compared with that directed by his Instructions; and he must then act with regard to complying with, or refusing to comply with, such requisition as his judgment shall point out to be right; always recollecting the very heavy responsibility he will incur by an infringement of the orders of the superior naval authorities, unless the urgency of the case shall most fully warrant it."

This Instruction was issued thirty or forty years ago, and it has never been revoked.

said, he wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman will have any objection to lay a Return on the Table respecting the recent Instructions that had been issued?

The recent Instructions do not in any way bear on the point which my hon. and gallant Friend has raised. I will, however, lay on the table the Instruction which does touch that point.

said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether any additional appointments have been made to the Staff of the Metropolitan Police; and, whether such appointments have, involved any re-organization in the districts visited by and the duties performed by the Police?

said, in reply, that the inquiry which had been instituted into the condition of the metropolitan police had established beyond doubt the fact that the duties required of the two assistant commissioners in the central office were of such an onerous nature as to interfere materially with that general and personal supervision of the police which was absolutely essential. A change had been long contemplated, and his right hon. Friend the Homo Secretary, in pursuance of the powers vested in him, had recently made several additional appointments. The metropolis had been divided into four districts, each of which had been placed under the charge of an officer called a district superintendent. These Officers were charged with superintending the general disciplinary duties of the police, and were generally responsible for the maintenance of order and the repression of crime in their several districts, being immediately answerable to the Chief Commissioner. One advantage resulting from this ar- rangement was that whereas formerly the police had constantly to go to the central office to answer complaints and transact other business, all such business would henceforth be transacted in the district offices. He was convinced that when the arrangement was fully carried out it would be found highly convenient.

said, he wished to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he has arrived at a decision as to the propriety of extending over Scotch Counties, the area of the inquiry at this time being prosecuted in English Counties, into the expediency of applying the principles of the Factory Act to the regulation of the employment of children, young persons, and women in agriculture, especially with a view to the better education of such children?

said, in reply, that when the Commission was appointed power was given to the Secretary of State for the Home Department to extend the inquiry to Scotland. At first it was confined to England, but as the inquiry advanced it was found that the circumstances under which women and children were employed in agriculture in Scotland differed greatly from the circumstances under which they were so employed in this country. It had consequently been determined to extend the inquiry to Scotland.

said, he rose to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether Government have it in contemplation to introduce a Bill this Session to amend the Bankruptcy Law of Ireland, with the view of assimilating the Law in that Country with the changes which are about to be introduced into the Bankruptcy Law of England?

replied, that it was not the intention of the Government immediately to bring in a Bill on this subject. Her Majesty's Government were, however, deeply impressed with the importance of amending the Law of Bankruptcy in Ireland, and if the measure which his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for England had introduced should pass into law he (Mr. Sullivan) would bring forward a Bill to extend its provisions to Ireland. If a measure relating to both countries had been brought forward great inconvenience might have been the result.

I believe, Sir, I must make an apology to the House, which is not very frequently made, for not having entered at sufficient length into an explanation of this Bill when I brought it in. The fact was I knew I should have to make a full explanation on moving the second reading, and not wishing to inflict two speeches on the House, and believing that the Bill might be much more easily explained when hon. Members had it in their hands, my explanation on introducing the measure was as brief as I could possibly make it. Hon. Members need not, however, be apprehensive that my explanation on the present occasion will be as long as I can possibly make it. I propose to be as brief as I can, considering the importance of the subject, which has excited a great deal of interest in the country; but, as there are many details in the Bill, I must beg the attention of the House for some little time. I have this advantage in now entering into a full explanation—that during the three or four weeks that the measure has been before the country it has excited much interest, and some objections have been stated which I hope to be able to answer in the course of my remarks. The first question which hon. Members will no doubt put to me is this—"On what grounds do you ask the House to give to the Government such large powers for the reform and re-organization of Endowed Schools and educational endowments?" Therefore I must briefly state to the House the facts which have induced the Government to come forward and ask for these powers. I happened to be on the Commission which was appointed to inquire into the condition of secondary education throughout the country, and I will, as briefly as I can, give the final upshot and result of that inquiry, which was conducted by many men much more worthy of regard than myself—men of different political and religious views, and I think most of them men whose opinions on educational questions would have great weight on account of their antecedents. We were ordered to examine into the condition of all schools which had not been examined into by two previous Commissions—the one being that presided over; by the Duke of Newcastle, which dealt with elementary education, and the other the Special Commission which was appointed to inquire into certain Public Schools. The first difficulty which we had to contend with was that, being supposed to be a Commission whose duty it was to examine into middle-class education, we found it almost impossible to define the meaning of the term "middle class." We found that it included an enormous portion of the community; but for our purposes we quickly discovered that this great section of the British population might be divided into three parts—that for school purposes they were very conveniently divided by the ages at which the boys in general left school, and that by those ages we might in broad terms define very well the class and condition of the parents. We found that one class was composed of men in much the same position as those who usually send their sons to those Public Schools for which we legislated last year, such as Eton, Harrow, and Winchester—men, in short, of independent income, and for the most part men who look forward to sending their boys to the Universities or to giving them the same school education as those receive who go to the Universities. The age we found at which the boys educated at those schools—the tone of which was very much the same as that of our great public schools—left them was generally between eighteen and nineteen. We also found that there was a second grade larger in point of numbers which left school generally between sixteen and seventeen, which comprised those who were being educated for special professions—such as the army or engineers, the medical or legal professions—and those who were being educated, and they constituted a considera- ble number—for trade. We found also that there was a third grade very much larger than the other two—indeed, as great, if not greater, than both together, and, in my mind, the most important grade, as far as the question of legislation is concerned—in which the boys left school about fourteen, and were the sons of small farmers, small tradesmen and shopkeepers, or of superior artizans. I shall not trouble the House with any detailed account of the condition of these three grades, but, on the whole, the result as we ascertained it was certainly not satisfactory. In the first grade we found that the education attempted was a high classical education, given in many cases successfully; but we found generally that there was great difficulty in obtaining a good scientific education, such as might be obtained in Germany or France, and that there were not many schools in the kingdom in which such an education could be procured. We found, in short, that parents who were in a position to spend any amount they might please on the education of their boys experienced great difficulty in getting them taught well anything but Latin and Greek. The same remarks apply to the second grade, at which the boys did not remain long enough at school to obtain anything like a complete knowledge of Latin, their acquaintance with Greek being-little more than a mere profession, while the sciences and modern languages were neglected. Petitions have been presented this evening on this subject, and in one of them—that from the Council of Medical Education, which is signed by Dr. Hawkins, and into which I have had an opportunity of looking—the petitioners say that—

"The maintenance of a sufficient standard of examination is rendered exceedingly difficult owing to the defective and limited education generally given in secondary schools."

Again, in the Petition signed by Dr. Acland on behalf of the British Medical Association, composed of about 4,000 members, there is a statement to the same effect. I will now trouble the House with one or two answers which were given in the course of the long inquiry of the Commission. We examined, among others, Dr. Gull, who was asked—

"What, in your opinion, is the state of previous education which at present, generally speaking, the candidates for the medical profession obtain?"

The answer was—

"I should say still a very defective condition. There is no thoroughness in the teaching. I should say that men are defective in common writing and spelling. … Of course there are numerous exceptions, but it is still a common thing. There seems to be no training of the faculties of men for acquiring knowledge at all."

Dr. Gull describes the age of those of whom he is speaking as about sixteen, and Mr. Paget, in answer to a question which was put, said—

"I should say that the condition of knowledge of young men coming up for examination in regard to scientific subjects is highly unsatisfactory."

I had an opportunity of seeing the Petition, presented from, the London University, in which it is pointed out that their matriculation examination is not of a very high standard. "Nevertheless," they say—

"The average proportion of candidates who have been unable to pass the matriculation examination during the last ten years has been nearly 40 per cent, a fact which, considering the object and nature of the examination, proves the existence of grave deficiencies in the secondary school education now provided in this country."

That applies to the first and second grades, and in the case of the third grade—which occupied our attention more than any other—we found the state of things to be even more unsatisfactory. Parents in the first grade, being generally persons in affluent circumstances, are able to take care of themselves, and I think it is hardly necessary to legislate for them, though we spent a considerable portion of last Session in discussing a measure relating to our great Public Schools. The same remark applies to the second grade, but if we are to look after education at all in the country we must direct our attention to the third grade which I have mentioned. With respect to that section of the community we did not find either that the aim was high or that the education given was as good as it might be. As Canon Moseley says, what is wanted by parents in this grade is very good reading, very good writing, and very good arithmetic, though I should be sorry if the portion of our population of which I am speaking should be content with the elements alone. The final conclusion at which we arrived was this—After saying that—

"Whether schools shall be public or private, for boarders or day scholars, large or small, nay even what shall be the particular curriculum, is a secondary consideration, and saying that the first consideration is that the teaching shall be sound and stimulative, the discipline manly and firm,"

the Commissioners add—

"It is plain from the evidence of our witnesses, and the still more important evidence of our Assistant Commissioners, that the schools, whether public or private, which are thoroughly satisfactory, are few in proportion to the need. Of these few there are some public and some private, but the private schools are those intended for the upper class and the upper half of the middle class. Below that line there is little good education till we come to the elementary schools under Government inspection. That little, however, is in public schools."

No part of the Report is, in my opinion, more completely borne out by examination than that general summary of the state of education. But, passing from that part of the subject, I come now to another portion of it into which we were ordered to inquire—I mean the resources of Endowed Schools which were provided by our ancestors chiefly for the purpose of giving secondary education. It was our business to examine into the number and income of those schools, and the following are the statistics on the subject, which I am enabled to furnish as the result of our inquiries:—Of Grammar Schools, into which it was more particularly our province to inquire, there are, independently of the seven Public Schools for which Parliament legislated last year, and including St. Paul's School, but not including Merchant Taylors', 782, whose gross income is £345,757, of which there is a net income for the purposes of education of £202,684. Those schools have also control over exhibitions amounting to £14,265. There are 2,175 schools whose total endowments amount to £247,480, of which I believe about half is applied to education. We have consequently 2,957 Endowed Schools whose gross income is £593,281, out of which, at least, £340,000, is at present appropriated to education. Now, that is an income which ought to do a great deal. I have had one or two maps made with the Endowed Schools marked on them, and it may be seen that they are scattered all over the country, so that one would expect that if this large income were well bestowed, it must have a great effect on education. I will now briefly describe the result of our inquiry into the condition of these schools; and, in doing so, I will refer to some of the cases which came under our notice, not mentioning the names of the schools, which, however, can be furnished to any hon. Member who may desire it. The head master of one of the schools told an Assistant Commissioner that—

"It was not worth his while to push the school, as with the endowment (about £200 a year) and some other small source of income he had enough to live on comfortably without troubling to do so."

Another master of a large Endowed School, having an endowment of £651, put his nephew and son into the respective positions of second and third masters. The Assistant Commissioner—

"Found the discipline most inefficient, and the instruction slovenly, immethodical, and unintelligent; there was no one subject in which the boys seemed to take an interest, or which had been taught with average care or success."

At another school—at a short distance from the one just mentioned—with an income of £610 a year—

"There were thirteen pupils, and it appeared as if even this number would be reduced; the school rooms were in a shameful state, and the scholars, though showing signs of having had teaching, were in a thoroughly bad state of discipline, and apparently only staying on to qualify for the school exhibitions."

There was another school reported on in the same district, with an income of £204, so that if all these schools had been well and carefully administered, the education of the whole district might almost have been provided for. At this school—

"The sons of the master and of the incumbent of the parish appeared to absorb an inordinate share of the teaching; none of the town boys had made even respectable progress in the ordinary rudiments of education."

Then, again, there was a school with a

"net income of £792 a year, where the head master taught three boarders, and no others: the under master only attended when he chose; the usher taught an inferior village school."

In another school, where two masters received £300 between them, and one had a good house also, one boy was receiving instruction, while a private school close by had eighty boarders and forty day scholars, paying higher than the grammar school fees. At another school, with an income of £266, there were only eleven pupils, and "the whole place wore an aspect of decay and desolation," but the master objected to a new scheme being procured. In another instance the master had other business, and at one time carried on continuously with the school the business of a flour and spinning mill. The upper half of this school "were profoundly ignorant on all subjects." In another, where the master—since dead—received over £200 a year, the Assistant Commissioners found him occupied in preparing a system of "teaching prime numbers," the system being contained in two perfectly unintelligible cards, which were shortly to be brought into use in the school. There is another case in the south of England in which the trustees made it a condition with the master on his election that he should take boarders, but he fixed the terms so high (£120 a year) that they were practically prohibitory—

"Six day boys, all very young, and paying fees composed the school. The boarders' dining room was occupied as a coach-house by two of the master's carriages, the night study was a laundry, and the large dormitory a billiard room."

Our Assistant Commissioner in Suffolk found that at one school the master—

"Did no work whatever, but supports an old age in the comfortable schoolhouse; at another he was almost helpless from age and paralysis; at a third he was honest enough to declare that he was no longer fit for work; at a fourth he was deaf; while at three others he was no longer in the prime of life, and was languishing under his work. That is to say, more than a fourth of the grammar schools in one county were suffering from the bodily infirmities of the master."

Now, I do not say that those instances give an average impression of these schools. There are many good schools among them, and many more aiming to be good. There are many which give a substantial education, and with regard to those which do not succeed in giving it, it often arises as much from the system not meeting the necessities of the time, which require something more than a mere classical education, as from any want of zeal and earnestness on the part of the master. I could point to several most excellent schools which we discovered in the course of our inquiry, and since I introduced this Bill I have found objections made to it, not by the bad schools—they never come near me—but by some of these good schools. They are afraid of the Bill. Now, I wish to assure them and the House that it is not for the good schools that the Bill is framed. We cannot, of course, exempt such schools by name, for in that case there would be no end to endeavours to obtain it, but schools which are well managed need fear nothing from the operation of a Bill which is to introduce good management. Looking over the state of our Endowed Schools generally, I find, independently of the glaring errors I have mentioned, two or three deficiencies in the system. Even the good schools aim too exclusively at a classical education, and have an almost irresistible tendency to become monopolized by the children of the rich. As they become good classical schools they raise their terms. The schools next in rank, where the pupils leave about the age of sixteen, take their type and example from the superior schools. They attempt to give an education from -which the children can derive little benefit, because it is of no use to confine education almost exclusively to Latin and Greek in dealing with boys who leave school at sixteen. Many of these schools, therefore, with excellent intentions, are yet practically giving scarcely any education at all. Below these, again, there is a large class of elementary schools which, when good, merely save the neighbours from doing their duty in providing elementary instruction, and when bad, prevent the establishment of good elementary schools. In fact, speaking generally, where Endowed Schools do not do good, they do harm, because they prevent the competition of other schools. A bad classical or quasi classical school keeps out of existence a good commercial school. A bad elementary Endowed School prevents the establishment of a good inspected school. Indeed, I must say that if we cannot reform the whole system, I should be inclined to agree with some persons of great weight and authority, that with the view of promoting education throughout the country, we had better ignore the Endowed Schools; that if we cannot reform them we had better lose sight of them and go on as if they did not exist. But I will not abandon the hope that it is possible to reform them and that, when freed from the abuses which have arisen in their administration, they will be productive of great good in the future. It is only because beneficent men now living see the misapplication and the uselessness of educational endowments in the past, that we have not at this day as large endowments as were given in former ages; and I believe that if the Legislature now determines that the real intentions of the founders shall be carried out, and that the spirit shall not be sacrificed to the letter of these trusts, these old endowments will be succeeded by still larger ones in the future. We have an instance of this in the case of Mr. Whitworth, who, for the spread of education, has made an endowment quite equal to any made in the time of Edward VI. Well, now we come to the question what we may hope to do in re-organizing these schools. I have endeavoured to show what is the state of secondary education, and next, what are the resources of the Endowed Schools, what they are doing, or rather, what they are not doing; and now, one word as to what they might do if they were rightly re-distributed and reformed. I believe that they might then give the education which is needed to vast numbers of the middle classes—to many more than the 37,000 children who are already in these schools—and that they might do this so as to stimulate the private and proprietary schools, instead of preventing their existence. They should be administered, I think, not upon the principle of bestowing education as an alms and a dole upon classes who can afford and who wish to pay for it, but rather upon the principle that what an endowment can rightly do is to provide good and sufficient buildings, and put the master in such a position that while he has a small and certain income at starting, the increase of that income shall depend on the way he does his work. We had to consider carefully this question—whether it is desirable that masters should have any payment out of the endowment, or should entirely depend upon the school fees. I confess that I formed my opinion on this point in a great measure from my trade experience. I looked upon masters as persons employed by the trustees to do certain work, and—I hope they will not feel the comparison a disparaging one—I thought it would be right to treat them as I should treat persons whom I employed to do any commercial work. Now, I have found, that the way to get the best service in such cases is to give a small fixed income, which makes a man independent of great want or calamity, and then make the remainder of his income de- pend, fairly and generously, upon the success of the undertaking in which he is engaged. I believe that -will be the system by which we can best regulate the payments to the masters of these schools, whereas now very frequently their income is entirely independent of the success of the school, and in those cases the school does not succeed. Hitherto I have talked only of the middle classes, and have said nothing about the working men and the poor. It may be said that many of these schools were founded especially for the poor. No doubt in many cases they were; but in many cases, on the other hand, it seemed that the object of the founder was simply the promotion of education. But I shall be asked—"How do you propose to administer schools especially founded for the benefit of the poor? Will you hand these over to the middle classes?" Now, I must remark here, that the poor are not confined to one class. There are many needy men—needy, too, from no fault of their own—to whom it would be the bitterest trial and humiliation if they could not give their children a high education. There is many a struggling clergyman, many a professional man, who has worked hard as a physician or as a lawyer, who finds it hard work to give his children the education without which he feels that they will lose their place in society. It is not our business specially to legislate for parents in this class, but we should not lose sight of them; and it is not to the credit of this country that if a man in this class wishes to give his son the same education as a boy in the same class would get in France and Germany—if he sends his son to a good boarding school, and thence to the University—he would have to spend very nearly £2,000 to do so. Then there is a class of parents below that I have mentioned, comprising also many professional men, many tradesmen, and members of the Civil Service, to whose sons something more than a mere elementary education is a necessary of life. These men find a great difficulty in providing the necessary education for their children, and they must not be forgotten, for they pay a large portion of the taxes of the country—I doubt, indeed, whether there is any class which pays a larger proportion of taxes in proportion to their means than persons with incomes of from £150 to £500 a year. They are hit by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in indirect taxation, and in direct taxation through the income tax, and they have a right to be considered. But when I said that this was to be a poor man's question, I meant that it should also be a working man's question; or, if not, I should hardly be inclined to take the matter up. How, then, can we make this Bill a working man's Bill? It may be replied by seizing the endowments and applying them to the promotion of elementary education. I hope and trust that will not be done. Such a measure would be, indeed, a deviation both from the intentions of the founders, and from the use the foundation, and as to the promotion of elementary education, that is a duty which falls on the nation, and the nation must perform it. I hope, therefore that neither the Chancellor of the Exchequer nor the President of the Poor Law Board will attempt to seize hold of this fund either to relieve general taxation or the poor rates. You cannot, I believe, though it may seem a paradox, satisfy what is due to the working man—and due to him according to the intentions of the founders—without in some way departing from the letter of their intentions. Their intentions were, in very many cases, that all classes should be admitted to the schools, and that those pupils who evinced a special faculty for learning should continue to receive education quite independent of their condition in life or the position of their parents; and that arrangement was easily carried out in those days, when there was not so great a demand for learning as now, and when only those boys who were capable of learning remained for a long period at school. Now the case is altered; education being a necessity to the middle classes, the Endowed Schools are crowded by their children. Gratuitous admission to them is by favour, and it rarely happens that the working man's child comes in; and when he does, he comes in with an invidious distinction. He is often regarded with scorn, and kept out of the play-ground. The way to really get him in is to substitute for admission by favour, admission by merit, and let the free boys come in by open competition. These schools, therefore, might be made to provide good masters and good education for the middle classes, and also to meet those comparatively exceptional cases, in which, children of working men are both specially fitted for high education and can be allowed by their parents to remain at school. Both these ends might be met, but they are not met now. The middle classes do not receive the good education which they want, and it is most difficult for a clever boy in one of the elementary schools to find any means of getting a better education after his first course of instruction is finished. In order to provide means to secure these ends, we need powers to form, if necessary, fresh trusts, and to reform the management of these endowments. We must be provided with power to give the schools, in many cases, fresh governing bodies, to enable the governors to see that the masters teach the subjects which the parents want the children to learn—to give the head master authority over his assistant masters—to give girls, whose education is now the worst cared for, that share in the advantages of these schools, which I am sure was the intention of many of the founders that they should have, and to encourage day schools, for we must remember that without day schools it is impossible to supply good secondary education in towns, though we must also not forget that no sufficient education for the sons of small farmers can be obtained without cheap boarding schools. Above all, we must have power to prevent the rich seizing hold of the results of the reforms now proposed. If this be not done, just in proportion as you make a school good the richer parents will be anxious to send their children to it, fees will rise, and the poor boys will be elbowed out by those above them. There are two ways to prevent this—one, by taking power to fix an average of time at which toys should leave, and thereby to determine the relation of schools one to another; and the other is by making a fresh system of exhibitions, to substitute admission by merit for admission by favour. I hope the House will bear with me while I explain how this free admission by merit will provide for the clever children of the working classes. It will be said that this is a boon in name and not in reality; because if admission is made to depend on examination upon entrance into school the richer parent will have an advantage, in consequence of being better able to prepare his child for examination. I would meet that objection by affixing this exhibition, not to examinations upon admission into the schools into which the boys come, but to examinations at the schools from which they come. You have elementary and national schools in the country, and if you attach to those schools exhibitions to a school above them, every boy who proves his pre-eminence by getting one of the exhibitions is thereby promoted to the school above, and by that means you make a ladder by which the clever boy may mount to the highest education, and you stimulate the tone of all the schools below and around. I will give one instance of the way in which this will work. I will take the case of Edward the VI.'s Grammar School at Birmingham, of which the gross income at present is £12,000, and in a few years will be, it is believed, £20,000, and at the end of the century maybe £40,000 or £50,000. When we examined into the school we found free nomination the rule, making this large and good school do as much harm as good. This free admission by favour was described by the head master and our Assistant Commissioners as a—

"Blight on the preliminary education of the children of 300,000 people, and as having destroyed nearly all the private schools in Birmingham."

Nor did the harm stop there. There were thousands of children who did not gain admission, but whose parents neglected their education, hoping to get nominations. The system has now been reformed, and the following is a statement of the result, received from the Rev. Charles Evans, the head master, in the course of the present month:—

"The governors have entirely abandoned the system of nomination. Admission to the Grammar School is obtained solely by a competitive examination, in which the candidates are grouped according to age, a certain number of vacancies being assigned to each group. Applicants for admission to the elementary schools register their names at the secretary's office, and are examined and admitted in their turn as vacancies occur. It would, I think be impossible to devise a fairer mode of admission than we have at present, and I feel convinced that if we could only obtain power to impose fees on all pupils in excess of those whom the charity can afford to educate gratuitously—that is, 500 in the grammar and 1,000 in the elementary schools, I should be able to make this institution in a few years educate three-fourths of the children of Birmingham. I regard the free admissions as a most powerful engine for this purpose. In a few years they would act like so many scholarships, stimulating and rewarding industry and merit throughout half-a-million of people. The surrender of the nomination system is more than equal in its beneficial effects to there-foundation of the school. The experiment is doubtless being tried under favourable circumstances—a large town to operate on, a school with a high local reputation, and 600 free admissions—that is, about 160 prizes a year to stimulate industry and reward success. These free admissions will soon grow into honourable distinctions, each one of them indirectly educating, by the hopes of success which it will excite, fifteen or twenty boys. The competition is carefully graduated, the candidates being grouped according to age, and a certain number of vacancies being allotted to each group."

In the same manner, I believe, if yon properly regulate the system of exhibitions you will produce the same effect on education throughout the country as, in all probability, will be made in the town of Birmingham. It is for powers to obtain these results that we now ask this House. But hon. Members who have paid attention to this subject may ask, are there not already constituted bodies that possess these powers? There is the Court of Chancery, and there is the Charity Commission. But to put a school into Chancery would be very much like what would be thought of putting oneself in Chancery. It is a process slow, cumbrous, and costly; besides the Court of Chancery is not adapted to such educational work. It is the business of that Court to interpret—to form a new scheme by the interpretation of the will of the founder; and when they interpret it, it is often not according to the wants of this age, but according to the letter in which these wants were defined at the time of the foundation. We need not be surprised if this interpretation often varies. Then, there is the Charity Commission, whose services as a body have been but little acknowledged by the country. It has been acting persistently, most laboriously, doing a great work, but it is in fact overworked, and its powers are insufficient. It is only in smaller charities that the Commissioners have the initiative. Besides neither they nor the Court of Chancery have power to consider one school in relation to another, or to attempt any system of re-distribution. True, the Commissioners have the power of submitting to this House special Bills, but this requires so much preparation, and even when the Bills have been prepared, so much watching that it is difficult to carry them through. In fact, since the Commission was instituted, fifteen years since, they have only carried eighteen Bills, and only nine of those related to schools. I trust I have stated to the House some grounds why we ask these additional powers. But I do not for a moment deny that there are difficulties in the way. We thought it useless to attempt to meddle with the matter at all unless we took strong powers; and we might as well not trouble the House with any consideration of the subject as not to ask them to give the means by which we might really effect this work of reform. At the same time we felt we ought to fence these powers with every limitation that could, without interfering with their efficiency, be placed around them. We have endeavoured to do that, and I must leave it to the House to say whether we have or not succeeded. First of all, there are several limitations directly by the Act itself. Clause 11 provides that due regard must be paid to the educational interests of the locality in which the schools are situated, and as regards the locality, I believe that no educational endowment need be carried beyond the county in which it exists. Clause 12 meets existing interests of individuals—trustees, masters and boys. Clause 13 exempts several schools from this part of the Act. These are the direct exemptions by the Act, but they are not the limitations and checks on which I mostly rely. The real cheek upon the extensive powers we take and give is the method by which we intend to use them and the body to which we give them. We have fixed on that body which we think most likely to be under the greatest sense of responsibility to local and public interests. Public opinion is, after all, the best check in this country. The Government carefully considered the question as to the body to which it would be best to give the power we ask for in this Bill, and, after the closest consideration, it seemed wisest and safest that we should not shirk responsibility in this matter; but if the Government of the day undertook it, it is impossible for them to do it without special assistance. The whole means of procedure, then, are these—It is the Government of the day working by special help. The Commissioners, as described in the Bill, who are to propose the reforms, are merely officers assisting the Government, and the mode in which they are to work I will briefly describe. I believe some persons have thought that the Commissioners have in themselves the power to alter trusts and settle schemes; but the Commissioners alone have no power whatever. What the Commissioners are able to do is this, as provided in Clauses 26 to 45—They are instructed first to prepare schemes; next, having prepared and published these schemes, they are to send them down to the governing body of the school—the trustees and head master—care being taken also to publish them in the locality, so that parents and all interested may be informed of them. Then, two months are to be allowed, during which the Commissioners are ordered to receive suggestions and objections. They are then, if necessary, to go down to the locality, or send down an Assistant Commissioner to make local inquiry, and after the local inquiry is completed they are to make up their own minds as to what scheme is to be proposed, and the scheme thus finally proposed by them is to be submitted to the Educational Department of the Government—the Committee of Council, in which I have a subordinate place at present. The responsibility will rest on the Government whether they approve the scheme. If they do approve it they will lay it before Parliament, and it will become law, if not objected to, within forty days by either House. Everything the Commissioners do will be mere waste paper till it has passed the ordeal of Parliamentary assent. There will, therefore, be in every case ample opportunity to object to a scheme locally and in writing, to bring local influence to bear on the Government, and also on both Houses of Parliament, for the purpose, if necessary, of disallowing it. Hon. Members may feel some surprise that the machinery proposed by the Government deviates so widely from the recommendations of the Schools Inquiry Commission. No doubt, the Schools Inquiry Commission recommended a system of Provincial Boards. I was a member of that Commission, and we spent some time in considering that question; and I am still inclined to think the conclusion we came to was correct, if we could find such a constituency as we require; but the difficulty was to find such a constituency ready to our hands; and, indeed, the difficulty of finding a perfect local con- stituency was almost an insuperable one. There was the other suggestion of the School Inquiry Commission, that, failing such a constituency, Government must make their own choice of local nominees. But how could the Government be sure that any local constituency would really have the confidence of the locality? We have endeavoured to secure by the means we propose both local inquiry and the hearing of local objections to every scheme. There is another difference between our Bill and the recommendations of our Commissioners. They recommended not merely an immediate reform and re-organization of the schools, but that there should be a machinery at once constructed that should secure the future inspection of the schools. It is objected to this Bill that we ask for great powers to re-organize, without taking any security that the schools do not go back in a short time to their old level. I must acknowledge that if hereafter matters were left alone this would probably be the case; but we thought it was better to leave this question to solve for the future, and for this reason—not that there should be no power to see that the trustees do their duty, after new trustees are appointed, but because we shall be in a better position, after these reforms and re-organization are completed, to decide to whom these powers tad better be given, and what powers are necessary. I propose, therefore, to leave this matter for the present to the Charity Commission, which has exercised its powers with great conscientiousness and care. But this is a temporary Bill for the reform and re-organization of Endowed Schools, and when it has been completed—in, perhaps, about four or five years—we shall be in a different position from what we are now, and we shall know what powers are necessary. Besides, we may hope that in that time a general system of education may arrive at something like a permanent position. We may expect that a change will be made in elementary education in two or three years, and when that is settled we may more completely define what the powers of the central government ought to be in regard to education, and how they ought to be exercised, and we may hope to find some means of creating local representation and a local constituency in educational matters. We have not followed another recommendation of the Commissioners. They recommended that in many towns, where the Endowed Schools do not meet the wants of the population, power should be given to make a rate for building municipal secondary schools, and for improving the existing buildings. We think we had better leave this also to the future. There is at present much difference of opinion with regard to the incidence of rates, but that also is a question which cannot long remain without some settlement. The first part of the Bill—and, possibly, the most important part—is that for the reform and re-organization of the Endowed Schools. In schemes for this reform, it has been thought necessary to make one or two directions, especially concerning what is called the religious difficulty, but which I must say is far less of a difficulty than it is generally supposed to be. This question increases in difficulty in proportion as it applies to schools not frequented by our sons, and it is less in these Endowed Schools than in elementary schools, but still the difficulty exists. The hon. Member for Stamford (Sir John Hay) has put upon the Paper one or two Amendments to the clauses affecting the religious question. I do not doubt that he has looked at that portion of the Report of the Schools Inquiry Commission which shows how the recommendations were arrived at on which these clauses were founded. These recommendations were framed and signed by gentlemen having as strong a view on that question as it was possible to find. We had long debates upon it, and at last the Report was signed by the Dean of Chichester, Mr. Thorold, and Lord Lyttelton, and I would suggest to the hon. Baronet opposite that he should read the long memorandum by Lord Lyttelton giving a history of the process by which he was convinced that the Conscience Clause was a fair and just one. [Sir JOHN HAY: I have read the whole of it.] The principle of that clause is that all public schools must be open to the public. It is the pride and glory of these Endowed Schools that they are public; that means that they are open to the public; and it is our duty to see that that large portion of the public who are not members of the Church of England are not excluded from them. But while we give the greatest possible power and latitude to the parents to insure that they may share the advantage of these public schools without having their religious views interfered with, we have also borne this in mind, that the position of day and boarding schools is very different. The master of a day school has the care and superintendence of the boys while they are in the school, but the parent has the real charge of their moral and spiritual welfare. But when you send a boy to a boarding school you give the master the trust and responsibility of superintending the moral and religious instruction of the boy in your place, and you sympathize with the master when he says that he can only teach his boys the religious views that he himself holds. In the case of such boarding schools we propose that, at the wish of the parent who objects to the religious educacation in such school, day school edution may be provided. I do not, how-over, wish hon. Members to suppose that this question of the Conscience Clause will ever get practically out of the walls of this House. All these Conscience Clause questions are matters of theory more than of practice. If the matter had been left to schoolmasters and parents to decide for themselves, without any attempt by others to interfere or tyrannize over their religious feelings, we should have found no difficulty in the matter. I have been called a supporter of the secular system of instruction, but there will be no more secular instruction in the operation of these Conscience Clauses as applied to Endowed Schools than there is at this moment. The principle of the Conscience Clause has, in fact, been adopted for years. It is included in every school scheme sanctioned by the Court of Chancery. In the other House of Parliament Lord Cranworth, in 1860, introduced a Bill which became law and which provided for the protection in Endowed Schools of the conscientious feelings of parents not in communion with the Church. Let me read the evidence of the present Lord Chancellor (then Sir William Page Wood) and Sir Roundell Palmer on this clause. The Lord Chancellor gave it as his opinion that the Conscience Clause would be introduced into Edward the VI.'s Schools.

"The Conscience Clause," he added, "is now inserted in every scheme without exception, unless there is a positive exclusion of any but Church teaching. It must not be merely a Church school; it must not be merely that the founder says 'I intend this as a Church school;' but he must say 'this is exclusively a Church school,' and if he does not say so the Conscience Clause is introduced."

The cases of exclusion the Lord Chancellor said were, he thought, not many. Sir Roundell Palmer used similar language. The hon. Baronet opposite (Sir John Hay) is really fighting after the battle has been decided, because the thing has been done. Sir Roundell Palmer said—

"I think it is now well settled that in all cases where the Court settles a scheme—it being a Church school—it says religion should be taught according to the principles of the Established Church, but that no children whose parents, or persons standing in the place of parents, object, should be compelled to learn any formularies or to attend the public worship of the Church of England."

Again—

"The only case which would preclude the Conscience Clause would be if there was an express and positive direction that every child should be taught so and so; but the cases are so rare that one almost suspects where they do exist they are overlooked in practice."

We have thought it right to except from the operation of the Conscience Clause all purely denominational schools, whether Church of England or otherwise. It was supposed by some that, by using the word "denominational," I did not intend to include the Church of England schools, and by others that I did intend to include the Church schools, and to cast thereby some slur on the Church of England. I hope I shall be acquitted of any such designs. I have so often heard hon. Gentlemen opposite speak of denominational schools, and express their preference for a denominational system of instruction, that I thought it a natural word to designate schools whether connected with the Church or not. By the 25th clause we take a modified power to deal with certain charities that have not hitherto been regarded as educational. There was nothing that appeared to us more clear than that a vast number of these charities, instead of doing good, were doing harm. I cannot help thinking, therefore, that it would be an immense advantage that, while re-organizing our educational endowments by this Bill, we should not lose sight of those charities, especially in the neighbourhood of the schools, but that we should see whether they might not be made use of for purposes as good as those for which they were originally established. No doubt, any power of this kind ought to be used with great care. My hon. Friends the Members for the City of London (Mr. Crawford and Mr. Alderman Lawrence) have presented Petitions on this subject from City companies, whose lasting success has no doubt been very much owing to the way in which they have looked after their own interests, and the interests of those who have been committed to their charge. I trust, however, that they will find in the course we propose to take that the fear they entertain is groundless. But I should be sorry if this clause were not, in principle at least, accepted. What we propose is this. We thought that the Commissioners would have already so much to do that we ought not to put upon them the task of inquiry, and therefore we have, as it were, made use of the Charity Commissioners, and decided that no charities which are not educational are to be used for educational purposes unless recommended by the Charity Commissioners. If hon. Members will read the Report of the Charity Commissioners, issued only a day or two ago, I have no doubt they will admit with respect to many of those charities, that, if doing some good, at least a large amount of mischief is mixed with it. There is, for instance, Smith's charity, of £16,000 a year, a part of which is given to poor relations of Smith, who appear to be discovered year after year, though Smith died more than 200 years ago. Certainly, as far as I can discover, those who partake of this charity cannot be happier, but are a great deal poorer from their chance of receiving a portion of this bequest. But that is but a small part of the harm done. The Commissioners do not speak of it in terms of very strong condemnation, but the evidence they produce shows that more than half the income is given in doles in 209 different villages and towns, and it is impossible to read that evidence without feeling that in far the larger majority of cases those doles are pauperizing the places in which they are distributed. In fact, the statement of an incumbent of one of those places is, "I consider that a charity was never worse applied. I think its effects are demoralizing." I come now to the second part of the Bill, and here I have to say that though we consider local inspection may be post- poned, we have not thought that the examination of the schools could be put off. I wish here briefly to explain why we do not feel that we could postpone the examination of the schools. Why is examination needed? Because it is the only way by which we can carry out the principle which, generally speaking, has teen acknowledged by both sides of the House in education, as well as in other matters—namely, that we should pay by results if we possibly can. If results are rightly defined and the payments fitly arranged, so that in trying to obtain one result we do not sacrifice another, nothing is so good as such a system. But it is impossible for the State to adopt this system directly in dealing with Endowed Schools, because we are not the paymasters, for after all it is the parents who are the paymasters. The way we can get the masters paid by results is to guide the parents. Now what is the use of having culture in the country, and of the State being able to bring it to its aid, if we cannot help the poor farmer and tradesman by some such examination as would give them that guidance in the choice of schools which almost all acknowledge that they greatly want? Well, if we are to do that, we simply require that there should be a power possessed by some body or Board of examining all the scholars in all the Endowed Schools once a year. We say that we think that ought to be compulsory upon all whom we touch by the Bill, that is, upon all Endowed Schools except those which we already examine—that is to say, those in receipt of a public grant from the Privy Council—and the seven Public Schools for which we legislated last year. I am sorry that such a provision was not put into the Act relating to those Public Schools, because I believe it would have done them much good, and in that way an example would be set to other schools which show some reluctance to be classed side by side with schools that are their equals. But we found from every kind of inquiry there was another want, a want arising from this—that many masters are incompetent. To remedy this defect training schools for secondary education were suggested. We find that training schools in France have done great good, but upon the whole the Schools Inquiry Commission came to the conclusion that they would not recommend them, be- cause their establishment would give too much power to the Government and too little scope for diversity of thought and the free action of opinion. But the Schools Inquiry Commission did come to the conclusion that the request which private masters made—that certificates of competence should be given by some competent body—was by no means unreasonable. We, therefore, take power to intrust the granting of these certificates to what we regard as a competent body. What shall this body be? You must remember that it is a Board or a Council that is to be formed, not for the purposes of inspection or seeing that the law is carried out and that the trustees fulfil their duty, but simply for the purpose of examining and informing parents of those two things—what masters have to teach and how these masters do teach. The body to whom we have thought it right to intrust this power is the body that was recommended by the Schools Inquiry Commission—an Educational Council of twelve members, six to be chosen by the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and London, and six by the Government. It was thought that the older Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, from their distinguished history and from the position which they had held and still hold in public estimation, and the younger University of London, from what it had been able to do in so short a time, would win the confidence of the country; and I must say this, I am sure from inquiries I have made that the two older Universities are day by day more and more looked up to from all parts of the country as great national seats of learning from which we might hope for assistance in a reform such as this. But we thought there ought to be other men of learning and experience in teaching on the Board, and therefore power is given to the Government to name as many as are to be named by the Universities. I must say that some such Educational Council would be useful, not only for thus examining scholars and giving certificates, but, in all probability, for counselling the Government and. the country upon educational matters. It is by means of this Council that we hope to make this Bill have its effect upon private and proprietary, as well as Endowed Schools. After all that may be done for the improvement of Endowed Schools, we can- not rely on them alone for the education we desire to give; we must look to private schools also. We have seen several of the best private schoolmasters, and we find a general desire among them to obtain acknowledgment as a profession. While therefore we have thought it right to compel Endowed Schools to submit to examination, we have also felt that it would be desirable to offer the same examination and certificate to private schoolmasters, believing that the best will try to obtain certificates and will court examination, and that those who shun examination and certificates will themselves be shunned by the public. But we are obliged, in fairness, to make the conditions in the case of private schools the same as with regard to Endowed Schools. I have said, in the beginning of my remarks, that I have had an opportunity of hearing various objections made to several clauses of this Bill. I have had conferences with several of the best masters of Endowed Schools and others, but I am glad to be able to state that I have heard no objection to the principle of the Bill. I have heard no objection to the object at which we are trying to arrive, although I have heard doubts expressed with respect to some of the provisions, and especially as to the Council of Examination. But so far as I can make out these doubts have arisen from misapprehension of our intentions, and I cannot help thinking that if these objections turn out well founded it will be very easy to introduce amendments to remove them. A doubt has been expressed whether in establishing an examining body we did not intend to dictate to the schools the subjects of instruction. We have no such intention. Some have supposed we intended to prevent the Council from acknowledging University examinations, but we have no such intention. Then, again, objection has been taken to the mode in which we make the examination self-supporting. I must say one word on the question of expense. The expense of reforming and re-organizing the schools is to be paid for out of the Consolidated Fund; but the expense of examination will not be paid for in that way, on the ground that, though the country may undertake the expense of the task of reform, it cannot undertake that of conducting the examinations. Another objection that has been made is that it is unfair to exclude the Cathedral Schools from the operation of this Bill. That is a matter which, no doubt, may fairly be discussed. The clause in which we arrange for the dismissal of masters is supposed by some to have an effect and an intention which was never contemplated. Again, I have heard complaints of our definition of educational endowments; and I may at once frankly state what, in my opinion, that definition ought to include, and what, I believe, it does include. It includes all schools for boys and girls for general education, and all exhibitions into and out of those schools. But if it be supposed to include Colleges, I can only say that it is not intended to do so. This, and similar points are, after all, not questions affecting the second reading, and I think they are matters in which the Government may fairly hope to have the assistance of the House generally, and that of Members on both sides, in amending the Bill if it may be necessary. It has been so often said that Bills of this nature are not party Bills that I hardly like to repeat so trite a truism; but I may say, that although this may have been called a strong Government, with a great majority at its back, I believe there would be no chance of our carrying a measure of this kind, affecting so many different interests, if it were a party measure. We put it therefore before both sides of the House in the full expectation that from both sides we shall receive help in perfecting and amending it; and if it should be thought that that help could best be given by a Select Committee like that to which the Public Schools Bill of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Walpole) was referred—not, of course, for the purpose of hearing evidence, which would entirely put an end to the Bill—the Government will be quite willing to assent to that course. I will only, Sir, make one or two very brief remarks before I sit down. I feel that this is a difficult question, and one with which I am by no means competent to deal. I could wish that it had fallen into the hands of one who possessed that culture which it has not been my good fortune to receive. But I trust that this measure will not suffer on account of any deficiencies on my part. The work before us is a great one, and having begun that work, I hope the House will do its best to bring it to com- pletion this Session. Depend upon it, this matter of secondary education is one which we cannot afford to leave in its present state. To take only the lowest ground, the competition, commercially, which we have to encounter with other countries, should make us lose no time in legislating upon it. I will take the case of my own borough. I do not know that it is worse—I believe it to be better—than many other places in this respect; but it offers us a very practical illustration. Bradford is a large manufacturing town—the centre of a great manufacturing district; it exports goods to other countries, at least quite as much as the neighbouring towns, and there is no reason why the middleman, the merchant, the person who arranges the process of exchange from the manufacturer, should not be an Englishman. He never, or scarcely ever, is. He is almost always a German in the case of the German or even of the French trade. It is the same at Manchester and, I believe, at many other places. Why is this? Because the education given to the boy who leaves school at sixteen or seventeen on the Continent at once fits him for these pursuits, while our own education for this purpose is deficient. There is a great cry just now for technical education; but it is necessary, in speaking of technical education, to avoid the error of putting the cart before the horse. We must give in our schools—what is given on the Continent—the groundwork and elements of science, before technical education can be of much use. Again, there is one fact bearing on the events of the last year or two which I think ought to make one of the objects contemplated in this Bill seem very important. We have brought new social forces into play that must affect the interests of the country. We have conferred more power upon the labouring class. Who are likely to lead that class? Those belonging to it who have most talent. Therefore, it is surely most important that we should provide the means by which boys of talent among the working class should grow up fitted by culture to use their talents aright. One word more as to the founders. We are told that by reforms we desecrate their memory; but were they here-—I almost wish they were—they would help us. They were the reformers of their day. They would be the reformers of this. They would call it a cruel mockery of their benevolent intentions to sacrifice the spirit of their gifts to the letter in which they are worded. And looking at the time when many of these foundations were endowed, there is a special fitness in our now setting to work to give them new life and strength by adapting them to present wants. Many of the richest and most important of these schools date back to the glorious Tudor times, when England was waking up to take the foremost part in the march of Christian civilization. Who were these founders? And why did they endow these foundations? They were men who were possessed by the new ideas of the age; they were fighting for industry against feudalism and for equal laws against class privileges; for free thought against bigotry; and knowing that knowledge and education and culture were on their side, they wished, by providing for future education, to procure champions for their cause in the future. And now, again, new ideas have power—this new central idea, bringing with it many others, that no special class is to guide the destinies of England—that not the aristocracy, nor the bourgeoisie, no, nor yet the working class, is to govern England—but that England for the future is in truth to be self-governed; all her citizens taking their share, not by class distinction, but by individual worth. And what is this but England carrying out in her far better way that idea which the great Napoleon strove by force to realize; that one principle which supported him spite of all his errors and crimes, La carrière ouverte aux talens, or, as Carlyle translates it, "the tools to him who can use them." Thanks to these founders, we have, at this moment, a great opportunity of helping to the realization of this idea—of yet again making our past minister to our future; and in the confidence that the House will not let slip this opportunity, I submit to them this Motion.

, having taken a great interest in the question, tendered his sincere thanks to his right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council for the candour, the conciliatory tone, and the fulness of explanation which, had characterized all his long and very interesting speech. At the same time, he did not think he should have even his right hon. Friend's dissent when he said that the very fact of his speech having been so long and so full in its explanations was the best justification of the considerable alarm which the Bill had occasioned, and he accordingly welcomed and claimed the promise of referring it to a Select Committee. The fact was, that the Bill was not self-explanatory. The scheme drawn out by his right hon. Friend in his speech was the scheme recommended in the blue book, he might say the multitudinous blue books of the Royal Commissioners. But on the face of the Bill there was no antecedent necessity that the recommendations of that Royal Commission should be given effect to in one single particular. What was the Bill, taken briefly? Why, that three anonymous gentlemen, forming an all-powerful triumvirate, should be appointed by the direct exercise of the Prerogative, and that that triumvirate, in an absurdly short space of time, should have power to initiate, to reform, to alter schemes, subvert constitutions, and re-cast the whole arrangements of the numerous Endowed Schools of England. He did not for a moment say that was his right hon. Friend's intention, for he had disclaimed it in emphatic terms; but it must be remembered that the animus imponentis was not necessarily what governed any law, and that there was enough in the Bill to excite the apprehension which it had raised, that such might be its practical working. His right hon. Friend said to the good schools—"Don't be afraid, our Bill does not touch you; it is merely for the bad schools." But, in fact, it did touch the good schools, as well as the bad. It swept in—with some named exceptions—every Endowed School, great or small, more than thirty years old. It gave power to the triumvirate—whose names did not appear in the Bill—to frame schemes, to send inquisitions up and down throughout the country, and to arraign and depose the trustees of the most flourishing, just as much as of the deadest and most paralyzed school. It was true that that power was fenced with sundry provisions, and sundry appeals were proposed in behalf of the existing governing bodies; but they all knew how difficult it was for any body of men, however intelligent, who had only a parochial or even a county knowledge of business, to grapple with that higher, finer, and more dexterous experience of administration which the official mind and official habits give to men. And, certainly, to borrow a familiar phrase, on the face of it the power of the Government in that Bill seemed over-weighted. It was over-weighted because it gave to that Commission so sudden and abrupt a power of initiation, without a preliminary day of grace during which the schools themselves might be invited to tender their own scheme. And in the Select Committee, which he gladly welcomed, when they took to re-casting the Bill, he took it for granted that the absurdly narrow space of time appended for that purpose would be altered. In his opinion a requisition ought to be sent to all the Endowed Schools within a certain period, inviting them to send in their own schemes of reform, which might be proposed either by the governing body, or by the masters, or by the community, for whose benefit the school professes to exist. If this were done the Commissioners would be made acquainted with the present mind of the schools and of the locality, and a great deal of the alarm which at present existed would be dissipated. He also thought that the names of the Commissioners ought to be inserted in the Bill. When the Public Schools Bill was under consideration there were discussions both in that House and in another place as to the names of the Commissioners, not from any personal motives, but because a reasonable conviction was entertained that on the personnel of the Commissioners must depend much of the tone and character of the reforms they proposed. In the nomination of the Commissioners there would be something like a guarantee, which did not now exist, as to the moderation or the radicalism—he did not use the word in an offensive sense—of the reforms proposed to be carried out. Then, it might be fairly claimed that the number of the Commissioners should not be so small as three. No doubt, fiscal reasons were to be considered in regard to this matter, but it should never be forgotten that efficiency ought to be preferred to economy. The present Government had introduced the precedent of unpaid high officials in the Treasury and elsewhere, and why, then, should they not include in this Commission the names of some eminent educationists who had the means and the desire to give their services to the country gratuitously? If the Commissioners few in numbers, and not impossibly men of one idea, acting from theory rather than experience, should grade schools according to their mere geographical position, a great grievance would often be occasioned. As an instance, he would mention the Free Grammar School at Cranbrook, with which he was well acquainted. At the date of the election of the late master only five or six town boys attended it, and for all reasonable purposes it was absolutely defunct; but a fortunate choice of a new master having been made in him, that gentleman, who died about three years ago, raised the institution to the position of a small public school, which it maintains under his successor, elected out of a numerous list of candidates. There were about eighty boys there at the present time, mostly boarders, sons of gentlemen of high position, partly town boys, sons several of them of small tradesmen, and they were taught high classical subjects, with the good-will of both classes of parents, while at the same time a good modern deportment coexisted. But under the geographical arrangements of the present Bill this school would, in all probability, be graded as a second-class school, in consequence of the proximity to Tunbridge. Such a proceeding would, however, be unfair to the people of Cranbrook, who liked to have an opportunity of giving their children a classical education. This case offered an apt illustration of the evils which might result from schemes being sent down cut-and-dried from an office in London. In the adjacent parish with which he was acquainted there was a school with a pretentious constitution, but without either master or scholars, the endowment being only £35 a year. This, of course, ought to be swept off the face of the earth as a separate school. His right hon. Friend had strongly insisted on the necessity of the clauses relating to what was termed the "Conscience Clause," and urged that the battle on that point had been already either won or lost, according to the views which people held in reference to that subject, as the Court of Chancery had for some time imposed a Conscience Clause on all Endowed Schools which came within its scope. But it was not the bare question of the Conscience Clause that created so much alarm in the minds of many excellent persons in the country when they read that portion of the Bill. It was not a question as to the admission of Dissenting boys to the benefits of education, without calling upon them to take part in the dogmatic teaching, which they objected to; that which led many persons to be alarmed was the loose way in which certain clauses of the Bill were drawn. They feared that if those clauses passed into law many schools which had been hitherto Church schools for all practical purposes would be gradually metamorphosed into Dissenting schools, and that, on the other hand (for he desired fair play) Dissenting schools might be changed into Church schools by a dexterous manipulation in the choice of the governing bodies. There was no objection to opening the doors of Church schools to scholars of all denominations; but, at the same time, if a school had had a dominant denominational character, either from its commencement, or for a long time past, that character ought to be sufficiently preserved. On this point the master of an old grammar school, characterized as "very satisfactory" in the blue book, had written to him in the following terms:—

"I have no remark to make on the clauses which relate to religious instruction, for this reason—under the new scheme given by the Master of the Rolls in 1855 for the regulation of this school it is ordered that religious teaching be on the principles of the Church of England, to which all the scholars are entitled unless a parent gives in writing an objection to the same. I have been head master of this school nearly fifteen years, and have never received a single notice of objection to the course of religious instruction all that time until last week—that is, since the introduction of this Bill into the House of Commons, and I believe that emanated from the bidding of a body in London which concerns itself in this matter. Since I have been master I have had upwards of 350 boys in the school of various religious opinions, and among the present scholars are a son of a Baptist minister and a son of a Wesleyan minister whom I am preparing for Cambridge University."

He contended that this school ought to be allowed to go on in the same manner as hitherto, and no risk ought to be run of impressing any "body in London" or elsewhere with the idea that they might, by means of a little successful agitation, substitute for the Conscience Clause the subversion of all distinctive religious teaching in any school. He held in his hand another communication from the head master of a large school. It was a distinctive Church of England denominational school, and as such these clauses did not weigh upon it and as also it was founded within the last thirty years it did not come under the provisions of the measure. His correspondent, therefore, was not actuated by any personal feeling in the matter, and, moreover, he was a strong Liberal in politics. Nevertheless, this gentleman expressed the greatest alarm at these clauses, for fear they should ultimately lead to the obliteration of all religious teaching in nearly all the schools in the country. He had, he thought, given sufficient reason to show that the Select Committee must re-consider this portion of the Bill, in order sufficiently to protect in a liberal and comprehensive spirit the religious colour of each school wherever any had been impressed upon it by long traditionary usage. He wished, moreover, to point out that the Bill was not merely formally, but really, divided into two parts, and it might be a question whether the latter or permanent portion, might not be advantageously postponed till next year. He ought to mention that another very distinguished head master, presiding over one of the most successful of modern schools, Wellington College, who had written to him, objected to the clause which required a certificate of fitness to be obtained from all persons being desirous of being appointed masters at schools other than the exceptional seven Public Schools. He was himself from personal association anxious to sustain the credit of those old foundations. But he was still more anxious for fair play, and he desired to give an equal start to the new Public Schools which had challenged them to an honourable rivalry, and to those distinguished ancient Grammar Schools, which were actively bidding for places in the front rank. Now, if Harrow, Eton, and Winchester might select their masters from the tripos list at Cambridge or the class list at Oxford, it was unfair to require University men, if chosen masters of Wellington or Bradfield College, or Tunbridge, Ipswich, or Uppingham School, to go down provided with papers signed by the Educational Board in London. Honours, he contended, ought in every case to be a certificate. He was not prepared to condemn the examination as proposed by the Bill, but he must at the same time point out that they would involve a risk of cramming, not, indeed, in the great, but in the smaller and private schools, which would be tempted to regard the good report of the examiners from the profit side; and as to the mode of conducting the examinations, he thought it would be much more effectual if an Assistant Commissioner were sent, from time to time, to present himself at a school when he was least expected and see how things were actually going on. Such unpremeditated examinations would test the working capacity of the master, as no cut-and-dried questions from London could do. If, then, the second part of the Bill were to be passed in the present Session—for which he saw no reason—the whole question relating to the examinations would require to undergo careful revision. There were other points in the Bill on which he should like to comment, but he would abstain from saying more with respect to it on that occasion. He had said enough to show that, urgent as the need of reform in the Endowed Schools was, and able and straightforward as was the statement of his right hon. Friend, yet there were deficiencies in the measure which fully justified those who were most anxious for a thorough reformation in not accepting it precisely as it stood on the ipse dixit of the Executive. With a view to their amendment, he would readily accept the Select Committee which the right hon. Gentleman had offered.

said, the right hon. Member who introduced the Bill before the House had stated that during the inquiry made by the Commissioners a great number of ill conducted schools and badly managed endowments had been brought to light, but that some really well managed and good schools had been met with. The right hon. Gentleman further stated that whilst the trustees of the bad schools had not been near him, the governing bodies of the good schools had sent up deputations which had waited upon him; that whilst the badly managed schools would be reformed and dealt with, the good schools had nothing whatever to fear from the operation of this Endowed Schools Bill. He (Mr. Howard) was glad to hear these remarks fall from the right hon. Member, for in the borough he had the honour to represent in that House one of these good schools did exist, and some 1,600 children were receiving therein an excellent education. The introduction of the Bill before the House had filled the minds of the trustees with anxiety if not with alarm, and he was therefore glad to hear that such a school had nothing to fear from the operation of the Bill. Nevertheless, he (Mr. Howard) was anxious on one point. Under the provision of the Bill three Commissioners are to be appointed to frame measures for the future disposal and management of the vast number of charitable endowments in the kingdom. The duties of these Commissioners will be of the most grave and responsible character. What he therefore desired to know was who was to nominate them? and he would also ask whether this House is to have any voice in the election or rejection of these important officers? He believed that it would be a great national disaster should gentlemen be appointed to this office who had imbibed educational hobbies or crotchets, or who are under the influence of narrow or stereotyped views for dealing with so great and comprehensive a subject as the future education of the great middle class of the country. He gathered from a perusal of the Schools Inquiry Commission, that some members of that Commission inclined to a considerable extension of boarding schools—indeed desired a complete net-work of boarding schools similar to our great leading Public Schools. As this Bill is founded upon the Report of this Commission perhaps he should not be considered out of order if he made just one or two remarks, and only one or two, upon the subject. It did not appear to his mind that a large extension of boarding schools is what the country most requires. Those who can afford to avail themselves of boarding schools are quite capable of taking care of themselves. He would rather devote a large portion of the funds which will accrue, should this Bill become law, to the establishment of superior day schools, and thus bring home to the very doors of the middle classes and place within their reach a cheap yet superior education. There are vast numbers of parents of the upper and middle class who had a liberal education themselves, and who naturally desire similar advantages for their children—but from their straitened circumstances they are altogether unable to afford the expense of sending their sons to a boarding school. Hence the necessity of bringing as it were home to them superior day schools in which a liberal education would be imparted at a small cost. This view of the subject had been forced upon him from the fact of his having been for twenty years past a trustee of one of the largest of our Endowed Schools, and of the advantages of which thousands of families of the class he and the right, hon. Gentleman had alluded to had availed themselves. He (Mr. Howard) considered the Bill open to objections in many of its details and trusted that the Government would consent to the course recommended and refer the Bill to a Select Committee.

It was, Sir, with great pleasure and satisfaction I listened to the statement of my right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Committee of Council (Mr. W. E. Forster). He has placed it, I think, beyond dispute that the condition of Endowed Schools in this country is such as to call for some strong remedy; and although I am not prepared to say that I assent to every point in his Bill, yet there is, I am sure, every disposition on both sides of the House to turn to the best advantage those endowments which have been left by our forefathers. My right hon. Friend the Member for the University of London (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) presented a Petition from his constituents to-night in favour of the Bill, but he did not, I observed, express his concurrence in its prayer; nor am I surprised that such was the case, for the right hon. Gentleman has written a pamphlet on the subject, which shows that it is one upon which there must be some slight difference of opinion among the Members of the Government. Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman is, as far as I understand, of opinion that with all the buttresses which we may build up to strengthen our endowments we are simply endeavouring to prop that which in itself is pernicious. That, however, is a matter which I shall leave my right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Committee of Council to settle with his right hon. Colleague, who, although he presented a Petition in support of the Bill, absented himself during the delivery of a speech from the Treasury Bench which would no doubt have given him very great pain. I wish now to say a word with respect to the Endowed School charities, where, for instance, there may be an endowment under £100 a year. In those cases the Commissioners are to have much greater power than in others; but there are many instances in which such schools are admirable, and in which the endowment of £100 a year constitutes the least part of the advantage derived from them by either the masters or the scholars, for although the endowment might have brought the school into existence, it, in the main, contributes little or nothing towards its support. The most irresponsible power will be vested in the Commissioners in regard to such schools, for they will have a less power of appeal than that which will be possessed by schools with large endowments which might not have attained to the same degree of practical efficiency. Now, in my opinion, the schools with endowments under £100 a year ought to have some protection in this respect. There is also another point which requires, I think, to be discussed at some length. I allude to the question how for the purposes of the Bill those small charities are to be dealt with which are mentioned in the 25th clause. Anyone who has seen the working of those charities must come to the same conclusion as my right hon. Friend (Mr. W. E. Forster) stated in his speech to-night—that they are not only in many instances useless, but often pernicious. But, at the same time, they were in the main intended for particular classes. I have read an account of the use made of Mr. Henry Smith's bequests. A gentleman with £400 a year has, I think, got part of them, and it is quite clear that that is not the sort of poor relation who was contemplated by the donor. He meant his bequest for the benefit of the poor, but this measure, it appears to me, takes some of those funds from the destitute poor, and applies them practically to the purposes of middle-class education. There are plenty of uses to which they may be applied with the view of benefiting those for whose advantage they were originally intended; and I am sure the middle classes do not themselves desire, if they are only so applied, to appropriate them in any sense to their own use. In the main, it is no doubt desirable that parents, where they have the means, should see after the education of their own children; but after all the State has a duty thrown upon it by the trusteeship of these endowments—a state of things which is recognized in the powers intrusted to the Charity Commissioners. They would not be able to undertake the great work proposed by this Bill, and I agree with the hon. Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Beresford Hope) that it would be most desirable, as well in the interest of the public as of those who are to be dealt with by the Bill—especially the head masters of these schools, many of whom are of the very highest character and possess a reputation not inferior to that of the head masters of the great Public Schools—that the names of the Commissioners should be inserted in the Bill. It would be very hard for the masters to be subjected to the control of Commissioners whom they could not look up to and respect, and as the names of the Commissioners appeared in the Bill of last year, I do not see any distinction between the two cases, or any reason why these names should not appear in this Bill also. When the Bill has received the sanction of the Legislature, the masters will thereby receive a guarantee that their interests will be properly looked after by men who have passed the ordeal of a scrutiny by both Houses of Parliament. Many points of detail have been submitted to me, but I do not think it desirable to discuss them at this stage of the Bill. They will be considered by the Select Committee, and I should not be justified in trespassing upon the House by adverting to them now. I will only say in conclusion that I shall be happy to give all the assistance in my power to the Bill in its future stages, so as to make it a measure which will be in accordance, not only with the feelings of the founders, but also with the best interests of the country.

said, that probably no Member had received more communications from his constituents respecting this Bill than he had, and he entered the House this evening feeling a good deal of alarm on the subject, but that alarm had been considerably relieved by the speech of his right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council. The City Companies had, perhaps, a greater interest than any other in this measure, for large funds and estates had been placed in the hands of nearly all of them for educational purposes; and he might add that no body of men had of late years been more ready to accommodate themselves to the advanced ideas of the age, and to place these institutions on a sound and useful footing. The Skinners' Company administered one of the largest and most successful grammar schools in the country: the Haberdashers' Company had five of those schools, and the City of London School, established under the authority of an Act of Parliament, passed rather more than thirty years ago, would become subject to the provisions of this Bill. Now there was no single institution of the country which had had such an effect on the education of its neighbourhood as this school; and since 1847 or 1848 no fewer than seventy-four young men brought up there had taken high honours at the Universities, especially at Cambridge, some of them having been Senior Wranglers. The authorities of this and other City schools had been considerably alarmed by this Bill, but he accepted the statement of his right hon. Friend that such schools were rather intended to be held up as models than to be altered and re-administered by the Commissioners. With regard to Clause 25, which proposed to deal with such loans as some of the City Companies were in the habit of advancing to young and deserving men, he was told that these loans had been of inestimable advantage in many cases, and that there were persons in the City who owed their prosperity to the help they had received in this way from their own Companies. He should be sorry, therefore, if this power of lending money were withdrawn, for the Companies were the best judges of the claims of those to whom their bounty could be most beneficial.

congratulated the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council on his clear and able statement, but could not help pointing out that, while the speech was in accordance with the recommendations of the Commissioners the Bill was not. The Commissioners said that Parliament should lay down the general principles to be adopted in dealing with these en- dowments, and that the aid of local authority and local knowledge should be sought. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman adopted that view, and he (Mr. Goldney) contended that the Bill should lay down certain principles upon which the endowments should be dealt with. As the measure was framed the Commissioners, without hearing any one, would exercise absolute power over seven-eighths of the 3,000 Endowed Schools that existed in this country. Where the school income was more than £100 a year the course was plain, but in cases where that income was £100 a year or under, the 37th clause shut out any appeal from the persons affected or any control by Parliament. If the principles laid down by the right hon. Gentleman were good, they should be stated in the Bill itself. The statement of the right hon. Gentleman, with regard to the admission, to the Endowed Schools by a species of competitive examination was, in his opinion, very unsatisfactory. Competitive examinations might be all very well for boys of thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen years of age; but he feared that if younger children were tested by it all the stupid ones would be excluded from free admission to the Endowed Schools. The stupid children ought to be educated as well as the clever ones, and some provision ought to be made to secure the benefit to all. This was one of the subjects well worthy the consideration of a Select Committee.

said, he was desirous to see an additional principle introduced into the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council had observed that good schools had nothing to fear from the provisions of the Bill; but if that were so it would be desirable to have the matter expressly stated in some provision of the Bill. It had been sought by legislation, especially by that of last year, to establish a particular standard of education, to which it was sought to elevate those schools which had not yet attained to it. There were many schools which were now gradually rising—schools that were almost equal to the excepted schools, both in the character of the education they imparted and the number of scholars they educated; and considering the admirable management under which those schools were placed; he could not see why the Legislature should violently interpose its interference. He would first refer to one of those schools of which he had particular knowledge, as he was one of its governing body—he meant the King's School at Sherborne. That school had attracted the attention of the Commissioners, who stated that the character of the education there was as good as that at any Public School, and they also spoke highly of the school dicipline, arrangements, and nature of the building. The school promised to become one of the great Public Schools of the country. There were many other schools which he might include in the same category, including Uppingham, Bromsgrove, Highgate, Tunbridge, Ipswich, Leeds, and Manchester. The number of boys at Sherborne was 257, whereas the number at Westminster was 148; at the Charterhouse, 138; and at Shrewsbury, 185. It was said that some of these schools were excepted because they were connected with cathedral towns; but was that the case with Eton, with Rugby, or with the Charterhouse? This test therefore was not to be relied upon. Why should schools thus favourably reported on, although of ancient foundation, not be allowed to go on under existing authority? And why should a percentage be exacted on their profits for advice they did not want? While he admitted that in several respects the Bill was an admirable one, he thought that this was a subject which should insure the attention of the right hon. Gentleman, and he (Mr. Wingfield Baker) would ask him to re-consider the subject with a view of placing the class of schools he had mentioned on a footing with those which had been singled out for special favour.

said, he would be glad if the right hon. Gentleman would explain why it was that, under the 18th clause, it was proposed to abolish in all cases the jurisdiction of the ordinary over schools. There were gentlemen—and he said so without meaning offence—on whom the very name of a Bishop acted as a scarlet rag on a bull, but why should the connection between the ordinary and a Church of England school be severed? Such a provision might be satisfactory to the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Hadfield), who thought that Bishops were only old tutors and schoolmasters, but he (Mr. Charley) held them in sufficient regard to induce him to wish to see the old association maintained. The hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope) had described this as part of a gigantic scheme for secularizing educational endowments, and other persons entertained the same fear. The 16th clause gave power to appoint persons to introduce schemes, and men of any or no religion might be of the governing body. The Commissioners were to be the nominees of the Liberal Government, and were to constitute a tribunal which was to be a substitute for the Court of Chancery, because it would act more in accordance with the spirit of the age; and might not that require that these schools should not be Church of England schools? Power was given to any governing body to apply the 16th clause to Church of England schools, and a governing body meant a majority of the governing body; which would be entirely under the control of the Commissioners, whom he could only describe as a triumvirate armed with despotic powers to do away with any existing corporation.

said, he was connected with the governing body of Tonbridge School, which had been referred to, and he quite agreed with his hon. Friend (Mr. Wingfield Baker) that where it could be shown that the governing bodies had discharged their duties efficiently they should not be interfered with. Tonbridge School was founded in the reign of Edward VI., and was placed under the Skinners' Company by Sir Andrew Judd, its founder. From that time to this the company had conducted the school to the satisfaction of all those interested in it. The inhabitants of Tonbridge were perfectly satisfied, so was the head master, and both were extremely anxious that the governing body should not be interfered with. The Commissioners, under Clause 10, were empowered to introduce into the governing body of any school a certain number of governors hitherto altogether unconnected with the school, and who could have no personal knowledge of its wants. The governors of this school were extremely jealous as to the exercise of this power; and it would be well to ascertain, in the first instance, whether any charge had been made against the school, before such a power were given to the Commissioners to do away with the present government without any sufficient reason being assigned for such procedure. He thought his right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council had made a mistake in this instance. He was sure that many other schools were entitled to make the same objection. The right hon. Gentlemen might say that if he made exception in the case of these schools, others would demand to be excepted, but the Commissioners themselves had pointed out that there were nine or ten schools of such a kind that they ought not to be made subject to the provisions of this Bill. With regard to the seven schools introduced into the Act of last Session, the governors were in the first instance to make a scheme for themselves; and the same power, he thought, should be given to Tonbridge and other schools in that category. He believed the governors of all those schools would be most anxious to extend their utility, and were quite prepared to do so. He therefore hoped, his right hon. Friend would not be afraid of introducing into the Bill, as exceptions, the ten schools the masters of which had demanded an exemption from its operation. Tonbridge School had nearly 200 boys in attendance; the school, the chapel, and other buildings, were all that could be desired; and very much had been done by the governors within the last four or five years. It was only forty or fifty years since the funds of the school had very much increased; and previous to that time the expenses of the school had been borne by the Company itself. He admitted that there were many cases in which this Bill would be found most useful in its operation; there were no doubt a certain number of monstrosities, as described by his right hon. Friend, extremely startling, and he thanked him for introducing the Bill on that account. It was necessary for the purpose of removing such evils, but it should be confined to those schools which absolutely required amendment, and he thought it would cause misunderstanding and heartburning if the trustees of those schools which had been well managed were dealt with so summarily. Nine schools selected by the Commissioners as schools of a special character should be excepted from the Bill, and he asked that if the Tonbridge School could not be excepted, the governors should at least be allowed to make out their own scheme in the first instance, and to submit it, if necessary, to the Commissioners. He agreed with the opinion that the names of the Commissioners should be inserted in the Bill, because these throe men would be able to re-model and deal with all the Endowed Schools just as they chose. That might be all very good, but it might also be very bad, and very great evils might arise from their proceedings. He looked with some dismay upon the enormous expense to which the Public Schools might be put in appealing, first to the Privy Council and then to the House. If the House agreed to give them a scheme, it must be embodied in a Bill which must be referred to a Select Committee, and then counsel must be engaged at an enormous expense to conduct it through the Committee.

said, that the case as it affected the Grammar School of Bedford was that all the world wanted to put its hands into the pocket of the school, and that when it was prevented it said the governors were bad men and wanted to obstruct education. The Members representing towns containing Endowed Schools did not think it right to stop the progress of the Bill, although it was clear that if they had banded themselves together they would have been able to offer very considerable obstruction to its passing. He would, for his own part, admit that there was a great deal in the measure that would be very beneficial, and that there was much that really needed reform in some of these grammar schools. What the governors of the Bedford School desired was to deal directly with the Vice President of the Council and the Government. His right hon. Friend's views on these topics he knew, but he did not know the views of the Special Commissioners. It was shown clearly that the great want was of schools for persons of small fixed incomes, and especially of cheap boarding-schools for the smaller farmers, and no county had met this want in a more magnificent manner than Bedfordshire. What his constituents objected to was the fear of what a Special Commission might propose. There should be an opportunity to schools that were doing their duty well to prepare a scheme and prove their case, before anything was forced upon them by the Commissioners. The Bedford Grammar School was free to all the world, and the only limit to the education given was the limit of accommodation in. the shape of houses for families in the town. There could, however, be no extension of this accommodation while the present uncertainty prevailed. He hoped his right hon. Friend would assure the House that schools that were doing a great work should, in the first instance, propose their own plan.

said, the remarks of the last two speakers indicated the quarter from which the storm was likely to blow. The problem of combining central superintendence with local activity was one of the most difficult to realize, and it would be well not to be too confident that if these large powers were given to the Commissioners, they would be exercised to the satisfaction of those who would be subjected to the inspection. What he objected to was, that there was no discrimination with regard to these schools. Good and bad were alike to be inspected, and what was more, they would have to pay for it. He trusted that the scheme of central supervision would be carefully investigated. He concurred in what had been said by the hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Goldney), as to a strictly competitive examination. Although he approved of the system of competitive examination, he thought it was highly necessary that the attention of the schoolmaster should be given to those boys who, wanting the abilities of others, evinced a praiseworthy desire to advance in their studies.

said, as a new Member, he could not help expressing his feeling of anxiety that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee. He had always had an idea that referring a Bill to one of those Committees was very apt to shelve it altogether, or to postpone it to another Session. He should be very sorry to see such a course pursued in this case. When, the other night, he heard the right hon. Baronet the Member for Droitwich (Sir John Pakington) express his general approval of the measure, he (Mr. Lea) was very glad to hear that there would be no organized party opposition. One or two hon. Members tonight had called the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the manner in which the Bill affected schools of a higher class. He should like to do so to schools of a lower grade. Those schools mostly belonged to Nonconformist bodies, and were supported chiefly by voluntary contributions and subscriptions, by the small fees—say, 2d. or 3d. a week—of the children, and also by small endowments, which brought them within the scope of the Bill.—["No !"]—He believed he was right in the statement he made. He had carefully studied the Bill, and he found no clause exempting those schools when they were in receipt of no Government grant. Of their number he knew nothing; but he did know that such schools did exist, and the clause whereby a fine of 5 per cent was laid on the fees of the children would be felt a very heavy burden, and would have either to be deducted from the income of the schoolmaster or schoolmistress, or to come from the small funds of the school. Those who had had the management of such schools knew well the difficulty that existed in keeping a school in a proper state of efficiency. If enough money could not be raised under the 25th section, he thought the expenses of the Educational Council should come out of the Consolidated Fund. Another point that he wished to allude to was the fact that the Educational Council would have the power of fixing its own fees. Without fearing that they would do so in an improper way, he thought it would be better if that were left to some other body—say, if they liked, the Committee of Council on Education. Then, to-night, he had heard several hon. Members refer with some alarm to the powers which would be given by the Bill. He was aware that the temporary Commissioners would be possessed with it; but he thought the powers of the Educational Council were rather too restricted. It seemed to him that the Government would constantly have to appoint temporary Commissioners, or that schemes for the altering and amendment of those schools would sometimes have to wait a considerable time; and he was rather in favour of giving that power to the Educational Council. He trusted he might be excused referring to those few points; but he was very anxious the Bill should pass into law this Session, with its main provisions untouched; and it would, he felt confident, meet with public approval. The great capability which the right hon. Gentleman had exhibited in bring- ing in the Bill proved that he was perfectly able to deal with the great question of a national measure, of which he (Mr. Lea) considered that a first instalment; and the country would not excuse any omission on the right hon. Gentleman's part, if he failed in doing so.

referred in terms of commendation to the extraordinary labour and care which, during a period of four years, had been bestowed upon the subject of Endowed Schools by a Commission of unpaid gentlemen. It must be a great gratification to them now to find that their efforts had not been without result. He was of opinion that his right hon. Friend had done right in inserting in the Bill the Conscience Clause. He rejoiced at the removal of the monopoly with regard to the head mastership of Endowed Schools, all who heard or read that description, and he felt convinced that the Universities and other public institutions would furnish an ample supply of able masters as soon as it was known that it made no difference whether they were clergymen or laymen. He should have been pleased if a hope had been held out in the Bill that ultimately local Boards would have been established, not because he feared the bugbear of centralization, but because no better influence could be exerted on the minds of parents than by giving them a share in the responsibilities of managing such schools. It would be necessary to have some authority possessed of a wider range than the mere locality in which the school was situated, and therefore he should be glad if, during the passing of the Bill through the Select Committee, some clauses should be added enabling the Government or the Educational Council, either at once or at a fitting time, to establish provincial Boards such as were suggested by the Commission. Several hon. Members had protested against their schools being brought under this Bill, but he saw nothing in the measure to prevent these schools from framing schemes for the sanction of the Commissioners. It was an absurdly limited time which his right hon. Friend proposed to give to the Commission which he was about to appoint under the Bill. The examination into the state of these schools had been a labour of four years to most able men, and now it was proposed that, at the most in four years, schemes should be drawn up for some 3,000 schools, that they should be revised by that House, and undergo various operations, and then the Commission was to cease. It was impossible, no matter what the capacity of the gentlemen employed in the task might be, to get through such a vast amount of work well in so short a time. He highly approved of the introduction of examination, but he should greatly regret to see the establishment, in any great numbers, of special scientific schools. They had not answered in France, Germany, or Switzerland, or anywhere they had been tried. Wherever literary had been separated from scientific instruction the scientific instruction as well as the literary had been a failure. He, therefore, entered his protest against training any young man simply in science without a literary foundation for his education. There was one thing which he regretted, and that was that this measure should have preceded instead of succeeding a measure for national education, because the difficulty of grading the schools was thereby increased. They would neglect their duty if they were to allow elementary education to remain where it was; but as they had not as yet framed a scheme of elementary education, the only thing that could now be done would be to reserve such powers in this Bill as would bring these schools into harmony with a more extensive and well-defined system of national education.

said, he believed that his hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Samuelson) need not be much alarmed at the prospect of the limited duration which he thought the Bill prescribed for the action of the Commissioners under it, because not only was there provision in one clause for the continuance of their powers in case Parliament should so think fit, but he might remind the House that Commissioners had as many lives as cats, and there was very little fear, in his opinion, that that term of three years assigned in the Act would be anything but the first of the nine lives which that Commission was probably destined to enjoy. If he were disposed, to criticize any limit assigned in the Bill to the period which must elapse between any of the steps in the progress of that scheme, it was the limit of forty days between the presentation of any scheme to that House and the period in which an address condemning it must be presented to Her Majesty. He did not know what particular reason could be assigned for restricting that interval to forty days, unless it were that that was the period of repentance given to Nineveh when its downfall was threatened. But while he concurred most sincerely in all that had been said in commendation both of the excellent speech of his right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, and also in the urgent necessity of a stringent measure for reforming abuses in these schools, he could not help regretting that fair consideration had not been shown to those schools which had been referred to by his hon. Friend the Member for Southwark (Mr. Locke) and other Gentlemen who had preceded him—namely, Tonbridge, Repton, Uppingham, Sherborne, and others, which, to say the least, were on a par with some of our best Public Schools which were included in the Act of last year. And although it might be very difficult to draw an exact line between those schools and others which stood in a somewhat similar category, yet it would be a proper subject for the Select Committee to consider whether some ten or more of those schools might not be comprised within the scope of the excepted schools, and, so far, might save the Commissioners the trouble of inquiring into them. Because, although it might be said that if they drew a line between those schools and others which came under the operation of the Bill, inasmuch as the tendency and object of that measure was to raise up the other schools to their level, that line would cease to exist, yet they must recollect that there was a class of schools excepted from the Bill of a similar character—namely, those established within the last thirty years. Wellington College, with which he happened to be connected, would be in a singular position. It was neither included in the Act of last year relating to the seven great Public Schools, nor placed under the operation of the present Bill. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: It comes under the second part of the Bill.] Well, he did not know whether the authorities of that school would be particularly pleased at that. He thought they might just as well be excepted from the operation of the Bill under any circumstances. As his right hon. Friend had corrected him on that point, he would ask his attention, for one moment, while he quoted a passage showing what were the views of the head master of that school with regard to the operation of the second part of that Bill. He had been in communication with the head master of Wellington College, as well as with the heads of several other great Public Schools, in reference to the second part of that measure; and he could tell his right hon. Friend that a very strong objection was entertained by some of the head masters of the most distinguished schools against the plan for limiting their choice of assistants to certificated masters. It struck him on reading the Report that the minds of the Commissioners had been rather influenced by the opinions which they had gathered from an examination of the Prussian system. The idea had got abroad that in Prussia, in consequence of the law which prevented any but certificated teachers from teaching either in public or in private schools, they obtained the most perfect machinery for teaching which the world had ever seen; and he had no doubt that that impression existed in the minds of the gentlemen who drew up that Report and that they would, if they could, enforce in this country a system very similar to that of Prussia. Now, it was worth while for the House to hear what the head master of Wellington College had written to him the other day as to what he had himself witnessed in Prussia under the operation of that system. It was a very short passage, and well deserved the attention of hon. Members. Dr. Benson said—

"I once saw a master pass his examination for a teaching certificate at Berlin. He had to attend at the principal and moat advanced modern gymnasium and take a turn with the first class. The hour and the boys were sacrificed to him. He did it very badly indeed; and I said that I thought so to the professor who presided. He said, 'Oh, yes, of course he did it badly; but we must give him a first-class certificate. He is a very distinguished man, and he will make a good teacher in time, no doubt.' He said it would be absurd to refuse him admittance to his vocation; that the system was necessarily formal, and would be better dispensed with."

That was the evidence furnished to him by the head master of Wellington College—which, he ventured to say was at this moment second to none in this country—as to the absolutely unsatis- factory test which that system of examination for teachers gave. Dr. Benson's own account of how to choose a good head master was as follows. He said—

"The best description of how a master should handle his form, and deal with little difficulties, which I ever heard, used to be given to me by one of the weakest masters I ever knew. He would have been perfect on paper, or in ticketing a form, with examiners standing by, in whose presence the boys would be perfect in behaviour; but leave him alone, and there would be a riot. On the other hand, one of the best, clearest, most definite, most popular masters I knew was one of whom, even at the end of two terms, I was in despair."

Well, with evidence of that kind, which he had no doubt could be multiplied indefinitely, he thought it was unreasonable to attempt to force upon the great public schools a class of masters the only test of whose fitness was an examination which they were to undergo at the hands of that Educational Council which could examine them only as to their knowledge, and could not possibly have any means of testing their ability for teaching. That, as everybody knew, could be ascertained only by experience. Dr. Benson said that any good tutor of a College would give a pretty correct idea of the fitness or unfitness of a teacher, that there was no other sufficient test than experience, and that, probably, a period of not less than two years would afford a satisfactory proof of whether a master was fit for his work or not. It was, therefore, to be hoped that this subject would be gone fully into in the Select Commitee, and he ventured to think that this part of the measure would probably undergo revision.

said, he had no doubt that when the Bill went before the Select Committee it would receive, as it required, very careful consideration. The 61st clause provided that the examination of the different schools should be paid for in proportion to the fees paid by the scholars. Under that provision they would have the school of Birmingham, for example, paying nearly £500 per annum towards the expenses of the examination—a sum which would pay for the education of between fifty and fifty-five children under the endowment at Birmingham. Why that amount should go for the examination of a school which was confessedly at the head almost of all the Endowed Schools in England he failed to see. He took the Bir- mingham school as a fair specimen of one class of schools with which the Bill proposed to deal. It was not many years since that school was in a very decayed state. In 1828 it had only 115 scholars, and the building was in a ruinous condition. Now, however, there were 1,767 children educated on that foundation, and the present building was well known as one of the most magnificent character, and which gained for its architect the opportunity of erecting the building in which they now sat. Having himself been educated in that school he took a particular interest in it. Its endowments were now large, owing to the increased value of the property. They were £10,000 a year, and if the views of the present head master were realized they might soon be augmented to £20,000. And yet that institution had grown in usefulness without special legislation. He was a scholar in it a quarter of a century ago under the present Bishop of Manchester, then its head master; there were brought up there boys of every religious denomination, Christian or Jew, all being educated together, and without the slightest feeling of distinction between boys of different positions in life. Some of the Birmingham boys of that period went to Cambridge and took the highest degrees there, some of those who did so being the sons of small shopkeepers or of men scarcely above the artisan class. The boys were educated without any regard to their different religions, and he never heard any objection on that ground, although he had been since informed that one or two Roman Catholics had objected to certain points of the religious teaching. Such, then, was the condition to which the school had been brought without special legislation of any kind. Now, what was the present state of the law with regard to charitable trusts? The right hon. Gentleman had, in his opinion, somewhat underrated the powers conferred by the Charitable Trusts Act with respect to schemes for schools. The Charitable Trusts Act of 1853, as amended by that of 1855, gave full powers for altering the governing bodies and amending the schemes, with the proviso that the new schemes should be laid upon the Table of the House, and be afterwards incorporated in a short Act of Parliament. Under the provisions of the Statutes he had just referred to, a special Commissioner, called an. Inspector, might be sent down to report into the state of a school and its governing body, and then to arrange an amended scheme for its management. That scheme, having been laid on the table of the House, was, if no objection were brought forward, to be referred at once to a Select Committee—a body quite as able to deal with a matter of this sort as any three Commissioners, however eminent, who might be selected by the right hon. Gentleman. Well, if a scheme could be passed in this manner, and if a fresh governing body could be thus called into existence, where was the necessity of putting the schools to the expense which they would have to incur if the present measure became law? Reverting to the high position of the school at Birmingham, he said that as the right hon. Gentleman had read a letter from the Rev. Charles Evans, the head master, he might, perhaps, ask permission to read one addressed by the same reverend gentleman to himself, and dated the 22nd of February, after the present measure had been brought forward. It was in the following terms:—

"I do not at present see many objections to Mr. Forster's Endowed Schools Bill; if carried, everything will, of course, depend on the character of the Commissioners whom they may appoint. They ought to be men, at any rate, who will take an unprejudiced view of the recommendations of the late Schools Inquiry Commission, the adoption of whose recommendations as regards this school in particular would, I believe, be disastrous to the cause of education in Birmingham. The main features of the scheme recommended by that Commission for the whole country have long been anticipated here. We have, as you know, schools of three grades—1. Elementary, 2. English, 3. Classical—a perfect system of affiliation, with unrestricted means of transfer from one school to the other, so that a ready opening is offered to merit wheresoever found. The elementary schools are open to the first applicant, who is invariably admitted in his turn as vacancies occur, while admission to the New-street school is entirely competitive, the governors having been induced by me to abandon entirely the nomination system; and now I am quite sure that if let alone, and with power to impose a fee on all beyond a certain number, say 500 here and 1,000 in the elementary schools, I could make this institution in a few years educate three-fourths of the children of Birmingham. The free admissions would soon grow into distinctions and school scholarships, stimulating and rewarding merit and industry throughout 500,000 people."

And now one word with regard to another part of this Bill, whereby it was sought to place all the power in the hands of three Commissioners. The right hon. Gentleman had urged, indeed, that appeals would be allowed, but what was the nature of those appeals? In the first place, an appeal lay from the decision of the Commissioners to the Committee of Council on Education. But surely schools would never take the trouble of appealing to them from the judgment of their own Commissioners? It had been stated by the right hon. Gentleman that there was an appeal to the Privy Council. Passing by, however, as hardly worthy of consideration two cases in which appeals would lie—namely, when vested interests were interfered with, and when the scheme was not made in conformity with the Act—passing by those cases, he was unable to find that any power was given of appealing to Her Majesty in Council. It was only given in cases specified by the Act, but no cases were specified. They might be well alarmed, therefore, when they saw that all the power was to be vested in three Commissioners, from whose decision there was practically no appeal. Those Commissioners might destroy the governing body of a school, overrule every statute under which the governing body acted, while the scheme put forward by the Commissioners would become the sole law for the management of the school. Yet, all the instructions given by the Bill to the Commissioners were contained between Clauses 20 and 24, one of which, as might be expected, abolished the Bishop. The only other point to which he would draw the attention of the House was the way in which charities other than Endowed Schools were dealt with under Clause 25. That clause empowered the Commissioners to deal with those institutions which were classed as "educational endowments." Now, although many persons thought charities of this kind tended to encourage pauperism, yet he must instance, with regard to the city of Coventry, many in that now suffering community would have been long ago in a state of starvation but for the old seniority funds which were doled out carefully to the deserving freemen. He alluded to this circumstance because there was no appeal in cases of charities under £100 a year, and the Commissioners having their eyes mainly directed to education would have every desire to get hold of all the money they could, and would consequently feel inclined to say that these were the very funds they wanted to carry out the objects they had in view.

said, that his right hon. Friend and Colleague the Vice President of the Council had in his able speech replied to many of the objections which had been raised in the country since the introduction of the Bill, and if his right hon. Friend had heard the objections raised since he moved the second reading he would no doubt have been able to reply satisfactorily to them also. The strongest point which had been urged against the Bill up to the present time was that respecting the desirability of excluding from its operation certain schools of undoubted character and excellence, such as Sherborne, Repton, Bedford, and Tonbridge. But if these exceptions were admitted, no doubt in a short time a large batch of other excellent schools would be recommended for similar treatment. He sincerely hoped the Select Committee would not agree to proposals of that kind, and, indeed, he thought it would be even better to include in the Bill the seven Public Schools which were now exempted from its operation. It would be impossible to provide for the proper gradation of schools unless all were at once under the view of the Commissioners, and the exclusion of any schools besides those included in the Act passed last year would fatally infringe the principle of the Bill. An objection had been raised with respect to the certificates of the masters, and it had been assumed that every master who presented himself must be examined by the examiners appointed by the Educational Council; but the hon. Gentleman who had raised, that objection could hardly have read the Bill, for it was provided by the 2nd section of the 58th clause that not only were certificates of fitness to be granted for examination by those examiners, but in respect of any examination which the Council might deem sufficient for the purpose. If necessary, provision might be made in the Bill itself to meet the objection which had been made with respect to those who had passed the University with honours, especially if they happened to have taken the higher honours. As to the Commissioners they were appointed for a limited time, the object of the Bill being that there should be a body who could at once apply themselves to the task of giving effect to the recommendations of the Commission, and having done that it would be for Parliament to consider what would be the future stops to be taken with the view of dealing with the supervision over the schools. The present measure was not recommended to Parliament as a final Act. The work was only initiatory, and how it was to be continued hereafter it would be for the wisdom of the Legislature to determine. His right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) had found fault with part of the application of the funds. The Bill, he said, took away those doles which were frequently applied to the benefit of the poor in order to give them to the middle classes. Such, however was not the object of the measure. One of its immediate objects was that the poor should gain advantages from those doles, though not precisely, perhaps, the advantages for which his right hon. Friend (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) contended, and one of its great recommendations, in his opinion, would be found in the fact that, in the words of the Manchester school deed, it would afford the benefit of education to boys of the poorest and humblest class, who, notwithstanding their poverty, were "of pregnant wit." Again, it was urged that the Commissioners wore not directly responsible to Parliament; but it should be borne in mind that those Commissioners themselves were but the creatures of the Privy Council, and that the Privy Council was responsible to Parliament. Indeed, that was one of the reasons why the Commissioners were not named in the Bill, as had been done on a previous occasion when unpaid Commissioners had been appointed. As matters stood in the present case, the whole responsibility of the conduct of the measure rested with the Government, and with them rested also the responsibility of naming the Commissioners. As to the operation of those Commissioners on endowments under£100 a year, that was a matter of detail. The Charity Commissioners now had the power of absolutely framing schemes wherever the amount of the endowment with which they had to deal did not exceed £50 a year, and it remained to be seen whether that principle might not very well be extended to endowments of £100 a year. His hon. Friend the Member for Pembrokeshire (Mr. Scourfield) was opposed to having the cost of in- spection cast upon the schools themselves, and if his hon. Friend meant by inspection examination, no doubt he was right in saying that they would have to bear the cost. He should, however, remark that they would not have to pay the cost of the original inspection, and it was only fair they should defray the charge of an examination which was for their benefit. The hon. Gentleman who had spoken last (Mr. Staveley Hill) seemed to think there would be no great advantage in appointing Commissioners under the Bill, and that the Charity Commissioners might carry out its provisions. The fact, however, was that the power of the Charity Commissioners to deal with endowments was very limited, while, in the next place, they would only be enabled to deal with the schools in reference to the schools themselves, and not with the question whether a school good in itself might be exactly the sort of school adapted to the wants of a district. There was no doubt that the powers proposed to be given to the Commissioners were arbitrary, and it was necessary that it should be so. But these Commissioners were, as he had said, but the creatures of the Government of the day, who would be responsible to Parliament for their proceedings, and that, he thought, would be sufficient to prevent any abuse of their powers. He did not rise to discuss the principle of the Bill, which had been admitted to be sound on all sides, and he would only add that he could state, on the authority of his right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Committee of Council, that the deputation of leading schoolmasters of the country, who would actually have to conduct the schools in question, had urged no objection against the principle of the measure. He should have been content to say nothing on this occasion, but he had wished to remove some of the misapprehensions which were current both in and out of the House.

thanked the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council for the very lucid statement he had made, and for his ample admission that the Livery Companies of the City of London had no grounds for fearing that their large educational establishments, which they had conducted so successfully for centuries, were likely by this measure to be taken out of their control. As the right hon. Gentle- man had decided to send the measure to a Select Committee, in accordance with the prayer of the Petitions that were presented that evening, he begged to thank the Government for agreeing to this. It was not his intention now to discuss the details of the Bill, which would be more properly considered by the Committee. He would merely say that he hoped the clause which swept into its net the various small and even large charities, of which time might have altered the use, would be carefully examined. The lending powers, for example, of the City Companies, by which they might advance sums varying from £100 to £500 for seven years without interest to young men who could give good security, ought to be respected, for there were many persons now of high standing in the City who owed their present position to the benefit of those trusts.

said, he wished to suggest a slight alteration of the Bill. It was complained that certain schools had not been excluded from the provisions of the measure, but his complaint was that all the schools of Scotland had been so excluded. An hon. and learned Gentleman opposite had referred to the Endowed School of Birmingham as a magnificent foundation, because it had an income of £12,000 a year, with 1,000 scholars. Now, one of the Endowed Schools in the City of Edinburgh had an income of £16,000 a year, and educated 3,300 out-pupils, besides those taught within its walls. There were other two Edinburgh foundations which had from £8,000 to £10,000 a year, and several others which had £2,000, £3,000, and £4,000 a year. On what principle these had been excluded from the Bill he could not understand. The fact was that these Scotch endowments required more to be looked after than those of England. The Charitable Trusts Act which had been referred to by the hon. Gentleman opposite did not apply to Scotland; the Court of Chancery had not the power to alter any endowment in Scotland, and there was no court in Scotland which had that power. When Scotland contributed £9,000,000 out of the £72,000,000 of Imperial revenue, it was only just that its interests should not be overlooked. He was aware that a Scotch Bill was talked of, but a great many Bills were talked of for Scotland which never passed. He wanted to see the clause struck out which said that this Bill should not apply to Scotland, and he expected that the greatest good would result from the change. Some hon. Gentlemen seemed well satisfied with what to others appeared a very low scale of educational results. The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) had referred to that town and county as if it were a perfect paradise educationally, but he (Mr. M'Laren) happened to have in his hand a Return presented to Parliament for another purpose, which showed that Bedfordshire was amongst the worst educated districts in England. Even if the people of Bedfordshire were well contented with their present state, that was no reason why the inhabitants of other districts should not desire to raise them up to their own level. He found that out of every 100 women married in Bedfordshire forty-four could not sign their names, and out of every 100 men thirty-four could not do so, whilst in Northumberland, Cumberland, and the northern and eastern parts of Yorkshire persons signing with marks were not one-half or one-third so numerous. He trusted, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Committee of Council would not be misled by statements made about the flourishing condition of this or that school, although much lauded by persons, who really knew little about their results. He appealed to the educational statistics of the country, and thought it would be difficult to find schools in Bedfordshire, or anywhere else, which would not be greatly benefited by being subjected to the operation of this Bill.

said, he heartily concurred with his right hon. Friend in hoping that this very important measure would be treated upon its own merits, and would not be made a party measure. But, this being so, he hoped the Government would carefully consider that feature in the Bill which provided that the Commission should be identified with the Government of the day. Now, he could not help feeling that this was a mistake. Without pledging himself to the course he should take after hearing the matter thoroughly argued out, he believed that the hands of the Commission would be strengthened by naming the members of it in the Act, and by giving them something of a more permanent position than they would otherwise enjoy. These gentlemen would have no easy task before them. It was all very well to talk of the principles upon which endowments should be dealt with, but when you come face to face with local interests and had to grapple with bodies of trustees and others, it would be found that the persons who had to deal with these interests had a difficult task before them, and should, therefore, be a really strong body. He did not object to their being strong; in his opinion they would not be strong enough owing to their connection with the Government of the day. This connection would be a weakness to the Commission and possibly also to the Government. He regretted, that it had not been found possible to give effect to the idea that local bodies should be intrusted with some of the delicate functions which would have to be discharged in re-organizing these endowments. Local bodies, having local knowledge, would be enabled to deal better with many of these questions than a central body; but if it was thought that a central and not a local authority should act, it ought to be appointed by Parliament, and would be all the stronger if it were independent of the Government of the day. He hoped that this subject would be fairly discussed in the Select Committee and that many of the objections to the details of the Bill would there be obviated, so as to accomplish what he believed to be a most essential reform.

said, that, as a Member of tire Schools Inquiry Commission, he felt grateful to the Government for embodying in a form so suitable for legislation the general scope of the proposals of that Commission. He was still of opinion that ultimately some local and provincial machinery would be desirable for the permanent working out of our secondary education, and that conclusion was supported by the example of some of the most cultivated countries on the Continent. It was gratifying to him to find that the religious objections which had been advanced by one hon. Gentleman had not been followed up by any other hon. Member, and he thought that the House might congratulate itself also that the Bill was not likely to be stopped by a combination of local influence. With regard to one point which had been mentioned during the debate, he thought it might be shown in nearly every case that masters were considerably embarrassed by self-elected bodies of trustees, and that administration by irresponsible trustees was not the best arrangement which could be made for the government of a school.

said, he had been really unable to discover anything that could be called a principle in this measure. Both sides of the House might claim a wish to pass some measure upon the subject, and the Bill merely embodied the feeling that there should be a reform and re-organization of Endowed Schools. The whole of the working of the Bill was to be left to a Commission, consisting of three persons not named, who were to exercise greater functions than Parliament itself ever exercised in former times; who were responsible, it was true, to the Government of the day, but who were not to be directly responsible to Parliament. He could not see how the system of the Educational Council and of the examiners could be carried out without superseding in a great degree the existing system of middle-class examinations established by Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

I wish, Sir, to state to the House the reasons why, in former years, I have not thought it any part of my duty to vote against the second reading of Bills of the same character with that now before the House, and why on this occasion it is not in my power to support the Amendment of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Mowbray). I confess that, looking back to the year 1854, I was one of those who at that time strenuously resisted the first proposal made to remove the obstacles which then existed to the admission of Dissenters to education in the University of Oxford. I did that, not by any means from a feeling of hostility to Dissenters—far from it, or from any want of good-will to mix with them in education; and perhaps I may be excused for repeating the words I then used on that subject. I said that I should regard it in the light of a positive advantage to have intercourse with the Dissenters facilitated in every way which did not interfere injuriously with the functions of the Church; and I opposed that measure because I foresaw that so great a change in the system of the University would necessarily lead to a very great disturbance of those relations between the University and the Church which I felt to be useful to the Church and to the country. And I foresaw also—what experience has verified—that the movement then made would not and could not be final; that you could not possibly stop at the point then indicated, but that if you admitted Dissenters to education on a footing with other young men in the Universities, in the course of time it would be utterly impossible not to extend to those so educated equal advantages with others. I own I did participate in the fears then entertained, and which are still entertained by hon. Friends of mine opposite—that the effect of that change and its consequences possibly, even probably, might be the subversion of the influence and authority of religion in the University—and feeling then, as I feel now, that the subversion of the influence and authority of religion in the University would be a calamity too great to be described, that it would destroy the most essential part of the value of University education, I was unwilling to be a party to what I thought the first step which might possibly lead to such a result. Sir, if I was too much an alarmist at that time I hope I may be excused in the judgment of the House on account of the magnitude and immense importance of the interests which seemed to be involved. I do not retract or in the slightest degree recede from the principle on which I then stood—that, above all things, the influence and authority of religion in the education given at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge ought to be retained; and if I were in my mind persuaded that it could not be maintained without rejecting this or any similar measure, unwillingly as I should oppose myself to that which, besides being apparently the desire of the House and the country, my own understanding compels me to regard as the inevitable corollary and sequel of what has been done, yet I would oppose it if I continued to think it was impossible that the influence and authority of religion in the Universities could be maintained without resisting such measures. But I confess I am no longer of that opinion. Now, let me ask the House to recollect the course which this question has taken since that time. Even at that time, in 1854, who was it that was mainly instrumental in carrying that first stop which most of us then perceived to involve the consequences now resulting from it? It was the noble Lord the Member for King's Lynn (Lord Stanley). The Government of that day were not willingly led to introduce that subject among the other reforms they were then engaged in promoting. They desired to leave it to the spontaneous action and judgment, if possible, of the University. The Motion for the introduction of Mr. Hey wood's clause into the Bill was opposed by the Government; but the noble Lord came forward and said—"Don't let the House be alarmed; don't let the House trust to future proceedings by the University in a matter in which it sees its own way clearly." The noble Lord saw his way clearly; he had no hesitation or doubt in the matter; he had no fear of the consequences; and I well remember he added—"Don't be alarmed about the House of Lords; don't be too ready to assume that you will meet with any difficulty in the House of Lords if the clause passes this House." And he had extremely good reasons for saying so, for the Chancellor of the University of Oxford sat in that House, and had a leading influence in it. No one could better know the mind of the Chancellor of the University of Oxford than the noble Lord; and he had, as far back as 1832, been among the most eager, at that time, to contend for the admission of Dissenters to the Universities. That credit belonged to the noble Lord; it was owing as much to him as to any man that the first step was taken at that time, and in that particular manner. What followed? The Oxford Act of 1854 limited the abolition of tests to those previously exacted from undergraduates on their matriculation, and from Bachelors of Arts upon their admission to that degree. Two years afterwards an Act was passed for Cambridge; and then, as Cambridge had always been in advance of Oxford with regard to the admission of Dissenters as undergraduates, so now, in the new legislation, it was in advance again; the Oxford legislation had limited the privilege conceded to the B.A. degree, but the Cambridge carried it forward to the M.A. degree. What has followed since? How have those Acts worked? There has been, if report speaks true, a considerable unsettlement and disturbance of opinion in both Universities; but I will not undertake to say whether this has been in any degree due to the operation of these measures. For my own part, I think it is due to other causes—causes which have operated throughout the Church and throughout the country. I think those who took an interest in the measure may, perhaps, rather see reason to regret that so few of our Nonconformist brethren have taken advantage of it, and I have not heard from any good authority that where they have done so any evil has resulted. But this has, at all events, followed as the consequence of what has been done, that both from within and without the Universities a powerful, constant, and increasing demand has arisen, for the further prosecution of those ulterior changes which were the logical sequence of the change then made; and from both Universities opinions have been expressed by a large number of men of position, character, and attainments, Heads of Houses, tutors of Colleges, and others, in such a manner as to make it manifestly impossible, in the judgment of any man taking a practical view of the subject, that this question can remain in the position in which it now stands. And that opinion, coming from both Universities with a very great degree of force and power, has been re-echoed from without with a greater degree of force and power; the Nonconformist body, having already got an established footing within them, is determined that that footing shall be extended, as far as the logical principle involved in what has already been done may require. Now, that is the state of things with which we have to deal; and we must consider, not whether we can altogether resist this demand, but in what manner we ought to deal with it—whether we can deal with it for the common advantage of the Universities and the country; and whether, in fact, the principle of that demand does require, that there should be a surrender of the influence and authority of religious teaching within the University. No doubt, a great deal of alarm has been expressed with regard to the Bill of my hon. and learned Friend (Sir John Coleridge). Last year, we know, from both Universities, addresses, numerously signed by persons of high character and in every way entitled to the greatest respect, were presented to the late Archbishop of Canterbury—himself a man of whom no one can speak without the desire to give expression to the feelings, universally entertained, of deep respect for his character, and sincere regret for the loss the nation has sustained by his decease. These addresses represented, in effect, that the Bill of the Solicitor General really aimed at the total destruction of the principle of religious education in the University—or that, at all events, that was its necessary, and not remote, tendency; and the late Archbishop of Canterbury did appear, in some degree, by his answers to these addresses, to have participated in that alarm. Now, the first question is, whether there is reason to believe that those who bring forward a measure which creates alarm do intend those effects and consequences, which it is apprehended may possibly follow from it. If they do not intend them, then, at all events, it may be expected, that if it can be pointed out to them that the measure as it stands may give some reasonable ground for alarm, they will be found willing to do all that is possible to alleviate those apprehensions, and give proof of their sincerity by agreeing to such modifications, not affecting the substance of the measure, as may tend to show that its principle is not inconsistent with that which they declare their intention to maintain. Accordingly, there came forward some of the most distinguished of those who, out of this House, have advocated this measure, and they disavowed, with undoubted sincerity, the purpose and intention which, if not imputed to them, were supposed to be involved in the measure itself. I will mention two names, one that of a gentleman, whom I am proud to call my relative, and whom I regret not to see now a Member of this House—Mr. Charles Roundell. He addressed a letter to the newspapers, in which he referred to the fact that the late Archbishop of Canterbury had thought it right to express his belief that to entrust University education to men who had no religious creed would inevitably tend to sap the foundations of Christianity; thereby seeming to imply that this would be one of the results of passing the Tests Bill. At this construction of the Bill he (Mr. Roundell) professed his astonishment; and he met it by saying that in every part of the Bill he found the most careful reservation and protection, in the most explicit language, of the religious teaching of the University? ["Oh !"] Hon. Gentlemen may think that the provisions of the Bill are inadequate for that purpose. For my own part, I should like to see that purpose stamped upon the Bill in a much more unequivocal manner; and for that purpose I shall propose certain Amendments, which, without altering the practical part of the Bill, will show that the sense of the Legislature is consistent with the declaration so made, that the purpose and intention with which it is brought forward is not to interfere with the principle of religious education in the University. Another name I will mention, that of a gentleman whose acquaintance I do not possess, but whom I have heard spoken of in the highest terms—Sir George Young. He also addressed to the newspapers certain letters, which he has since published in a pamphlet, and he also disclaimed any idea or intention of interfering with the principle of religious education and instruction in the University. I feel bound to give credit to such men for sincerity; and from those who agree with them I feel I am entitled to expect concurrence in any reasonable proposition to stamp the evidence of their purpose and intention upon the face of this Bill. If I could, for a moment, be persuaded that it was the purpose and intention of a majority of this House to subvert the authority and influence of religion in the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge; or if I thought the tendency of this Bill must necessarily be to impair its efficiency, I would not only not vote for the Amendment, but no majority whatever would persuade me to yield assent to such principles. I look upon it as a matter of the utmost importance that education should, as far as possible, be everywhere associated with religion, and above all, in those ancient places of learning in which education has always been associated with religion—where education has been stamped with a religious character from the earliest infancy of these institutions—which have always been the nurseries and seminaries of the clergy of our Church; and I think it would be an act of infatuation if this Legislature should ever desire to secularize those institutions and to deprive them of that which, in the eyes of all who place religion above all other kinds of knowledge, must be their greatest excellence. I believe that in saying this I do not express only the sentiments of the Church of England. Notwithstanding the unhappy differences which prevail on matters of doctrine, I believe that these sentiments are not peculiar to the Church of England, but are shared in common with them by the members of the Roman Catholic Church, and by the members of all Nonconformist bodies; all of which, differing as they do as to particular tenets, are as sincere and earnest in their religious belief as we are, and who, as little as ourselves, desire that their children should be sent for their education to any place, the moral atmosphere of which might be hostile to religions belief. As long as we have an Established Church—which I hope may be for ever—and even if, contrary to our hope and expectation, we should ever cease to have one, it will still be of the very highest value and importance that the clergy of the Church, which is now the Established Church—and which will at all times be the Church of a very great proportion of the people of this country—should find in the University such a system of education as may lit them for the discharge of their spiritual duties. What greater calamity could happen than that where you have an Established Church your clergy should not have a liberal education, and should not mix with the laity; but if you secularize the education of the Universities, and allow Christian influences no longer to speak with authority from places so long devoted to such instruction, how long would it be possible to keep the Universities as places for the education of the clergy? But this is taking too narrow a view of the question. This is a matter not affecting the clergy alone, but the laity. It affects all the people; for ninety-nine out of every hundred it may be taken are religious people, and desire that their children should receive a religious education; and anything that would un-Christianize any of our great seats of learning would be a deplorable national calamity, and not more opposed to the general feeling of Churchmen than to the sense of the Nonconformist portion of the public. How did the Legislature describe the University of Oxford in 1854? As "a place of religion and learning." So also in the case of the University of Cambridge. So also with respect to the Scottish Universities. Uniformly the Legislature has stamped upon its Acts a recognition of that character—that the Universities are places of religion as well as learning. I do not cease to remember the prayer which is offered up in the University of Oxford—

"That in this and in all other places more immediately dedicated to God's honour and service, true religion and useful learning may for ever flourish and abound."

If I thought that this or any other measure would subvert that purpose, I could not support it; but when I look to the Bill I do not think it is at all a necessary consequence that it should do so. The right hon. Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Mowbray), on Wednesday quoted a portion of the speech of the present First Minister of the Crown which he uttered in 1854, as if he (Mr. Mowbray), had some reason to suppose that he would not now adhere to the sentiments to which he then gave utterance. I have no doubt he does adhere to them, and so far as I have had communication with him I should believe he adhered to every word. I will read the passage, but I will read the whole of it, which the right hon. Gentleman did not do. This is what my right hon. Friend said—

"I hold the relative position of the Church and of the University of Oxford to be this—that while the Church is in the position of a national Establishment, so long as the people of this country insist on a connection being maintained between religion and education, so long the Church is entitled to expect that the interests of the University, that the discipline of the University, that the government of the University shall be moulded in conformity with the principles of religion, and with the principles of religion in that specific form in which they are held and taught by the Church of England."

And then, after expressing his disinclination to draw any line which could be avoided between admission to the University and admission to such endowments of the University as did not carry with them the power of government, he declared—

"That supposing due regard should be taken for the security of the religious teaching and discipline of the Church in the University of Oxford, then he considered there would be great advantage—advantage to Dissenters, advantage to the Church, advantage to the nation, if provision were—and he thought it could be—made for the admission of Dissenters to to the profits and advantages of education at the University of Oxford."

I have never heard anything fall from my right hon. Friend which would lead me to think he had changed those opinions. I have no doubt he still thinks it right that there should be due security for Christian and religious teaching in the University, and that he thinks this may be afforded at the same time that Dissenters may be admitted to the full benefits of the University. Let us see now whether there is anything in the provisions of this Bill necessarily inconsistent with that principle. I will take the indictment against this Bill which was laid before the late Archbishop of Canterbury. I avow that I have a great respect for those whose opinions are stated in that document, though they thus state what they believe would be the effect of this Bill—

"At the present moment there is a Bill before the House of Commons which, if it should become law, would completely destroy the existing connection of the University and Colleges with the Church. The effect of this measure would be (1) to transfer the supreme government of the University in Convocation to a body, the individual members of which will not as such be under any legal obligation to profess any Christian doctrine whatsoever; and (2) to throw open the Fellowships to all persons without regard to religious faith. We cannot contemplate these results without dismay; for as the tutors are selected from among the Fellows of Colleges, we are convinced that the admission to Fellowships of persons not necessarily Christians will imperil the continuance of religious education in Oxford, and tend to the establishment of a purely secular system. This, we are persuaded, would be repugnant to the deep convictions of the mass of the English people, whether Churchmen or Nonconformists. It is our firm belief that the only method of securing definite Christian education on truly liberal and comprehensive principles is to maintain the connection of the University and the Colleges with the National Church."

Now, let us consider, in the first place, what is the real substance and meaning of the statement, that the effect of this measure would be to transfer the supreme government of the University in Convocation to a body, the individual members of which will not, as such, be under any legal obligation to profess any Christian doctrine whatsoever. What is the real meaning of that? That you will not enforce a test on them. That is what it means. It does not mean that you will have in Convocation such a number of persons not believing in Christianity as will be likely to exercise a material influence on the government of the University. If it does mean that, I am entirely unable to see any ground for such an opinion. As long as Christianity is the general belief of the nation, it may surely be expected to have its adequate representation in the University even without tests. It must be remembered that at present, if there be in the University so large a number of unbelievers as would subvert and un-Christianize its character, there is no security in tests against that. There is no security against persons becoming unbelievers. You may at the time a person takes the degree of Master of Arts impose a certain test; but you do not re-administer that test as often as he goes into Convocation. If persons are unbelievers, and set at nought the whole spirit of the institution to which they belong—if they care nothing for moral character—such persons would probably be willing to take the test. At all events, if they took it formerly on an occasion when it was necessary for them to do so, that would give you no security that they would not afterwards depart from the obligation which the test implies. There is, then, no substantial security afforded by the test that the members of Convocation must really be persons who will uphold Christian doctrine. If the general Christian character of the place can be maintained, that is your security. The test would be nothing without it. I come now to deal with the Bill as it affects the teaching of the University. It affects the University in two ways. It provides first that no test shall be applied as a condition of a lay degree. I have dealt with that; but next it says in the 4th clause—

"From and after the passing of this Act no person shall be required, as a qualification for or as a condition of holding any public professor-ship or other academical office or place of emolument which is or may be tenable by a layman, or as a condition of teaching, within the said Universities or either of them, to subscribe any article or formulary of faith, or to make any declaration, or take any oath respecting his religious belief or profession, or to conform to any religious observance, anything in any Act of Parliament, instrument of foundation or endowment, or statute, of the said Universities or either of them to the contrary notwithstanding."

Now, I ask the House in examining the question what the effect of that clause would be, to remember that there is nothing in this Bill repealing or purporting to repeal any of the statutes of the University. And. it is important the House should know what the effect of those statutes is. As to the University Professors—of whom there are thirty-six—six being Professors of Divinity, or ex officio Canons of Christ Church—the University statutes forbid any Professor or Lecturer to teach, directly or indirectly, or dogmatically to assert, anything which is in any way opposed to the Catholic faith, or good morals; and enjoin them all—and in an especial manner all Professors or Lecturers in philosophy—to use all opportunities of recommending sound religion to their pupils and discouraging all anti-Christian opinions. The Vice Chancellor has a general power of punishing all offenders against the statutes of the University. Many of the Professors are removable by academical authority for any breach of duty; and others by authorities external to the University. Therefore I think it is clear that, as to Professors and Lecturers, without breach of the statutes of the University, which this Bill will leave unaltered, they could not teach anything against the religion of Christianity, or against the doctrine of the Church of England. I now come to the Colleges. The address went on to suggest that the Bill would "throw open the Fellowships to all persons without regard to religious faith." It proceeded thus—

"We cannot contemplate these results without dismay; for as the tutors are selected from among the Fellows of Colleges, we are convinced that admissions to Fellowships of persons not necessarily Churchmen will imperil the continuance of religious education in Oxford, and tend to the establishment of a purely secular system."

But let us see whether by the Bill this is so. By the Bill the Colleges are entirely saved from all interference with their present constitution. All the Bill does is to remove tests imposed by Act of Parliament, which are external and foreign to the constitution and statutes of the Colleges. That is a different thing from what is represented in the address; because the statutes of the Colleges and of the University contain the clearest and strongest provisions against any consequences of such a character as those apprehended in the address. I have not examined the statutes of the Colleges of Cambridge; but in all the statutes made for the Colleges of Oxford by the Commissioners under the Act of 1854, or by the Colleges themselves, it is provided, that those persons are to be chosen to Headships and Fellowships who are most fit to hold those offices in the College, as a place of religion, learning, and education. It would be impossible for men, not wilfully disregarding the moral obligation imposed upon them by those statutes to elect persons known to hold irreligious opinions. Daily service in the College chapels, with regulations for the attendance of the members of the College generally, are provided for; a certain proportion of the Fellows are required to be in Holy Orders; and contumacious non-conformity to the Liturgy of the Church of England is, in twelve Colleges, made a ground of deprivation; while in the other seven there are equivalent, or still stronger provisions, requiring adherence not only to the Liturgy, but to the doctrine of the Church. As to the College tutors, the statutes of the University require all scholars in Colleges to have tutors till they graduate; and they forbid any one to be a tutor who is not—among other things—religione secundum doctrinam et ritum Eeclesiæ Anglicanæ sincerus. Nor is the judgment on this question left solely on the College authorities; the Vice Chancellor is to decide upon it, in case of any controversy; and the Vice Chancellor may stop the exercise of his office by any tutor who is proved before him not to have this qualification. All tutors are also enjoined to be diligent in instructing all their pupils—Dissenters excepted—in the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, under pain of censure and punishment by the Vice Chancellor. There are similar provisions as to the Halls. The House will see, therefore, that this Bill is, a measure, removing certain external Parliamentary enactments, but not taking away the existing securities contained in the statutes of the University and of the Colleges for the maintenance of religion within those institutions. I cannot be interpreting the Bill wrongly in supposing that it is not intended to interfere with these things. My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General last year interpreted it as I interpret it now. He then referred to these statutes in the following terms:—

"All, then, that we ask to be done with the Colleges is that the State should remove restrictions on their freedom of action which the State itself imposed; all things else regarding them will remain as they are now. 'Their statutes, old and new, will remain unaltered.'"—[3 Hansard, cxcii. 212.]

And then he went on, in rather stronger language than I should have ventured to use, to say that—

"Every single Fellow is hound by statute and by oath to elect the man whom he believes, after examination, to be most fit to be elected a Fellow of the College, as a place of religion and learning; you must have a majority of the Fellows scoundrels, or else men who have become infidels since their own election, before this measure could even aid in the election of any but a man at least honestly believed by the electors to be a moral and religious person."—[Ibid., 217.]

That is stronger language than I should have ventured to use in this House, but nothing could more emphatically prove what is the avowed intention and purpose of the hon. and learned Solicitor General in bringing in the Bill. He does not in any way propose to interfere with the character of the Colleges or the Universities as places of religion, or by this Bill to authorize anything to be done inconsistent with their present statutes. As I understand the Bill, it leads to nothing but the abolition of a certain Parliamentary subscription test—it leaves the statutes of the Colleges and of the Universities unimpaired, while it takes away a certain subscription test which on certain formal occasions is now required to be administered. Now, what is the test? I believe it is only a subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles.

It is a declaration of conformity with the Church of England.

In the Colleges it may be so; but surely, if you are to look to laws and not to spirit in such matters, the laws I have referred to, the constitution, the statutes of the Colleges and Universities, with the powers of government which enable the authorities of the Colleges and of the Universities to enforce those laws, are infinitely better and more safe to trust to than the effect of some past test taken at some past time, and which, when once taken, is a net from which afterwards there is full opportunity to escape. There is no possibility of escape from the permanent laws of the Colleges and Universities; and, although it may be, that, in the exercise of, perhaps, a very sound discretion, there is no disposition on the part of the authorities of the Colleges and Universities to enforce these laws in an inquisitorial way, or to press them to an extreme and tyrannical extent, they bear a moral witness to the character of the institutions, and tend to the moral regulation of the conduct of those who come into them, and they morally condemn any members of the Colleges and Universities who are notoriously unfaithful to those obligations. No doubt, last year something was said—I hope it is not true—there are some things of which it is bliss to be ignorant, and in this case I partake of that bliss, for I am entirely without personal knowledge that such is the fact—but allusion was made in the debates of last year to some persons in the Universities who enjoy the benefits of some of the Fellowships, who were supposed to hold the opinions of M. Comte, or to deny the immortality of the soul. I am desirous to disbelieve that such is the fact, more especially as I have no evidence in support of it. But, assuming it to be true, of what possible use can your test be when it does not exclude persons holding those opinions from Fellowships? The true defences against such opinions are—first, the moral sense of the community; and next, the permanent laws of the com- munity. If these are insufficient for the safety of the Colleges and Universities, what additional protection can you hope to obtain from the dead test which you made a man take some years ago when he became a Master of Arts, or upon some other formal occasion? It cannot be relied upon as a moral obligation, because nothing can surpass the moral obligation of the permanent regulations of the Colleges and Universities which form the basis of the agreement which a man has entered into with the society of which he is a member, and which is to the effect that he will observe their laws and will conform to their spirit. Therefore, I say, you may safely throw aside these tests as being of no value, for they leave behind them all that which is of value—namely, the spirit of the society, the positive laws of the Colleges and Universities, and the sanction which accompanies those laws. It is to these we must look. Now, it is very remarkable to observe in what manner some excellent persons regard this subject, who feel, as I myself do, that the Universities, if they ceased to be places of religious teaching, would be as salt that had lost its savour. They are unwilling to place confidence in anyone who will not give them the assurance that the religious character of the Universities is to be preserved. And yet, some of the most eminent and excellent of the leading men of the University of Oxford, of this way of thinking, have proposed to abandon some of the Colleges to all sorts of religious denominations—some, even, holding tenets very remote from those of the Church of England—if they may only permitted to keep others for the Church of England. But I want to keep them all for the Church of England, in the sense in which that Church has a legitimate right to and interest in them. I want the prevailing influence to remain, but to be reconciled with the liberal admission of Dissenters. When I am told that the eminent persons to whom I have alluded are willing to give up certain Colleges to those whom they regard as their irreconcilable opponents, I am reminded of the following lines in Cowper's Needless Alarm:—

"Friends ! we have lived too long. I never heard

Sounds such as these, so worthy to be feared.

I hold it, therefore, wisest and most fit That, life to save, we leap into the pit."

I think that the moral, also, is not inapplicable to their case—

"Beware of desperate stops. The darkest day, Live till to-morrow, will have passed away."

Now, I may take the liberty of stating to the House my own view of what may and should be done upon this subject. I am bound to state that I think the apprehensions of which I have spoken ought not to be met without great respect and sympathy, at least by those who so thoroughly sympathize—as I do for one—with the principles entertained by those to whom I have referred; and I think that when we look at the Bill it is deficient in the full expression upon the face of it of the intention which, I am sure, its authors do entertain, to preserve intact the general authority and influence of religious teaching in the Universities. I shall, therefore, with the permission of the House, endeavour to explain the Amendments of the Bill which I should propose to effect. In the first place I think it would be just as well to introduce into the Preamble of the Bill language which will make clear on the face of it our intention to adhere to that view of the Universities which was expressed in the former Act. Therefore, I propose to amend the Preamble in the following manner:—

"In line 2, after 'Cambridge,' add, 'as places of religion and learning.' Line 4, after 'divers,' add 'unnecessary.' Line 8, after 'removed,' add 'under proper safeguards for the maintenance of religious instruction, worship, and discipline in the said Universities and the Colleges within the same.'"

In Clause 3, lines 22, 23, I propose to omit the words "or any of the Colleges or Halls thereof respectively." I also propose to insert two further clauses, one of which is as follows:—

"Nothing in this Act shall be deemed or construed to interfere with or alter, any further or otherwise than is hereby expressly enacted, the system of religious instruction, worship, and discipline which now is, or hereafter may be, lawfully established in the said Universities respectively, or in any of the Colleges within the same, or the statutes and ordinances of the said Universities and Colleges respectively relating thereto, or the power of any persons exercising authority in the said Universities and Colleges respectively to maintain and uphold such system of instruction, worship, and discipline, according to such statutes and ordinances."

The other clause which I intend to propose is one which I think the House will accept when they are told that it is merely a simplification and abridgment of one already in force with regard to the lay Professorships in the Scotch Universities. In 1853 the old test, required from lay Professors in the Scotch Universities, was abolished by Act of Parliament, and instead of it, the lay Professors in them were called upon to make a declaration to this effect—

"Every person hereafter to be elected, presented, or provided to any such office [of Professor, Regent, Master, or other office in any of the Universities or Colleges in Scotland, such office not being that of a Principal or Chair of Theology] shall make and subscribe, in presence of the Senatus Academicus of such University or College, the declaration following:—'I, A. B., do solemnly and sincerely, in the presence of God, profess, testify, and declare that, as Professor of—and in the discharge of the said office, I will never endeavour, directly or indirectly, to teach or inculcate any opinions opposed to the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures, or to the Westminster Confession of Faith, as ratified by law in the year 1690, and that I will not exercise the functions of the said office to the prejudice or subversion of the Church of Scotland as by law established, or the doctrines and privileges thereof.'"

I think it unnecessary to introduce the provision as to the subversion of the Church, for I do not see what power to subvert the Established Church can be possessed, through their connection with the University, by the persons from whom the declaration will be required. But I do conceive that the general principle of the declaration is one which may properly be followed, and that the House will think it only reasonable that what is required from lay Professors in the Scotch Universities should be equally required in Oxford and in Cambridge, more particularly as they will, in effect, only promise to obey the statutes of the University. Upon this subject, therefore, I propose to introduce the following clause into the Bill:—

"Every person hereafter to be elected or appointed to any Professorship in the said Universities, or either of them, or to the office of Tutor or Lecturer in any College within the same, shall, before he shall be capable of entering upon or discharging the duties of his office, or of receiving any emoluments thereof, make and subscribe before the Vice Chancellor of the University, or before the head or chief governor of the College for the time being (as the case may be), the declaration following:—'I, A. B., do solemnly and sincerely declare that as Professor of [or Lecturer in, or Tutor of, as the case may be] and in the discharge of the said office, I will never endeavour, directly or indirectly, to teach or inculcate any opinion opposed to the Divine authority of the Holy Scriptures:'"

So far the declaration I propose is in the very words of the Scotch declaration; it then goes on to add—

"Or to the doctrine or discipline of the Church of England as by law established,"

being an abbreviated form, but in substance the same. I cannot help thinking that if the House agree to take what I have just read, with the other Amendments which I have ventured to suggest, they will, while leaving the main objects of the Bill absolutely untouched, sufficiently prove that it is not the intention of Parliament to subvert the religious system and discipline of the Church of England in the Universities; but that it is the intention of Parliament to reconcile it with liberality in the administration of that system. I do not propose anything, which could operate as an exclusive test, unless it could be seriouly supposed that the Professor intended to violate the statutes of the University, and to abuse the opportunities of his office in a way which no man in this House would attempt to justify. I do not propose to call upon him for any declaration of personal opinion or belief. I only ask for precisely the same security which already is required in the case of the Established Church of Scotland. I confess I can hardly see how such a proposition can be reasonably objected to. The House will perhaps permit me to conclude by expressing my adoption—with the exception of a single expression, which I think ambiguous, and which might therefore be misunderstood—of a passage in a book, which was quoted or referred to by the right hon. Member for the University of Oxford on Wednesday last. The passage is one proceeding from a venerable man, whose authority I am sure will be none the less in this House, and none the less with my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General, because the author, having served his country eminently for many years in high judicial position, and having acquired with all who know him a reputation for wisdom and personal virtue of the highest degree, has also conferred upon the country the benefit of giving to it such a successor to his name and reputation as my hon. and learned Friend. The advice which that excellent man, full of years and full of wisdom, has given as the result of his mature consideration—a result not arrived at without difficulty or without reluctance—is this. I have already said I shall omit a few words, and hereafter I shall give my reason for omitting them. He is addressing himself to those interested in the Universities, and wishing to maintain in them the system of religions education and instruction—

"Recognize an inevitable necessity, not the less inevitable because you may struggle against it with partial success once and again; make a virtue of the necessity; seek to guard your concession with all such conditions as may, in your opinion, make it most salutary for the future"—

and that shall he my apology for seeking what I propose to do by my Amendments now—

"but remembering that England is no longer what she was when our Colleges were founded; that her population is not more increased in numbers than in wealth, and in at least a certain and improvable kind of education and refinement, in refined aspirations, to be guided rather than checked; and that the desire for academical training it is almost unnatural for the Universities to oppose; that, consequently, those who now besiege your citadel have, at the very least, a plausible ground of right; that their claim, if it be indeed rightful, should and can only be satisfied by full and frank concession—concession worthy of yourselves; that it is far better that those who press on you should enter by the gates than through a breach; and that it is far more Christian like, and therefore far more politic, to admit them as brothers than as conquerors."

The only words which I omitted were words which I observe were repeated by my hon. and learned Friend in his speech—"It is a case in which you give nothing if you give less than all." These are the words which I say might be misunderstood; they might be taken to mean that the man who desired to keep his own share of the common good gave nothing if he did not give up his own share of everything that made it valuable to him. I do not think that was the sense in which the excellent man whose words I have quoted used these words; that is not the sense in which I would myself accept them; but, with that sole qualification, I am able myself, and I should be glad, if I were able, to persuade others, to act unreservedly in the spirit of this advice.

said, he had listened with the deepest attention to every word which had fallen from so distinguished an authority as the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer). And if he ventured in any way to criticize so masterly a speech, it was because he believed the supporters of the measure were entitled to base their defence of it upon much broader grounds. The compromise which the hon. and learned Gentleman wished to effect and the modifications which he desired to introduce into the Bill were such as he (Mr. Morgan) should view with regret. They amounted practically to the substitution of one test for another, and he believed that all these tests, restrictions, and disabilities were either essentially useless or essentially mischievous. They either excluded nobody, in which case they were not worth the paper they were written on, or they tended to narrow the area of selection and to diminish the number of candidates for Fellowships and tutors, and by diminishing the competition they necessarily tended to lower the standard of merit among the candidates. The principle involved in this Bill was one of the most important as well as one of the most clearly and strongly defined that ever was presented to the House; for he took it to be nothing more or less than—were they to go on restricting these great Universities, with their magnificent endowments, their unrivalled educational machinery, and their worldwide prestige, to the position of mere nurseries for the training of clergymen of the Church of England, or were they to regard them as national institutions administering public trusts for public, purposes? If the narrower view, which regarded these Universities merely as theological Colleges were adopted, the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Mowbray) undoubtedly had made out a fair case against the Bill, But could any unprejudiced man logically defend a system which excluded from all participation in the government of the Universities, and from all power of competing for any of the prizes or privileges that were worth competing for, one-half, and that not the least intelligent half of the population of the State. The argument of the right hon. Gentleman opposite was the old argument against secularization of Church property, which fell so flat on the country last year. According to his view, the property of the Colleges was impressed with certain trusts and must continue subject to them, and the State had no more right to wrest this property from the Church of England than to interfere with any man's private estate. A more fallacious argument never was addressed to the House. If the right of the State were excluded, and regard wore had entirely to the intentions of the founders, the Church that would be entitled to this monopoly of endowments in the country would not be the Church of England but the Church of Rome. [Cries of "Oh !" and "No !"] The right hon. Gentleman had only put his finger on one single College out of the nineteen at Oxford to which that principle would not apply. ["Cambridge?"] Well, there were only three out of seventeen. The pious founders enjoined upon the holders of the Fellowships the duty of singing mass for the repose of their souls, and also enjoined strict rules of celibacy. By way of carrying out their intentions Roman Catholics now-a-days were shut out from the benefits of the Colleges, which were at the same time freely open to persons professing the opinions of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) and his hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley). The able argument of the right hon. Gentleman the late Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Gathorne Hardy) that endowments were left to the Church of Rome as the national Church and passed to the Church of England when it became the national Church, was altogether inconsistent with the argument of his Colleague, that those endowments were private property and inalienable as such. The steps taken, in 1854, of throwing open Scholarships and Exhibitions in Oxford and Cambridge to Dissenters were either too little or too much. He would ask, was it really meant by this system of checks to keep the wolf out of the fold? But nothing could be more mischievous than a system of checks which were no checks at all. Now, he would like very much to know how many men trembling on the brink of Popery had subscribed to those tests; how many free-thinkers, how many men to whom religion was a mere sham and a name? Why, he himself knew an old Fellow of a College who used to boast that he would like to see the oath he would not take in order to keep his Fellowship. They admitted such men and excluded conscientious Dissenters. It was the old story—

"Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas."

Then it was said the Dissenters had got Colleges of their own, and this was only a sentimental grievance. He was not so much afraid now of this taunt of a sentimental grievance as he would have been twelve months ago. The Irish Church was then said to be a sentimen- tal grievance, but it convulsed the country and it upset the Government. But this he would say, that if there was one question more than another upon which the Dissenters of this country had thoroughly made up their minds, it was this question of opening the Universities. The practical view taken by the constituencies of Wales and Scotland proved that. Hon. Gentlemen opposite might say, if they liked, that the number of Dissenters who would enter the Universities, in any case, was small, and, therefore, the grievance could not be very great. But they had no right to argue from the number of Dissenters who went to the Universities now, when they took away the attractions which would naturally draw them, to the number that would attend if the Universities were open. They had made the Dissenters a sort of proselytes of the outer gate, but when they came to the inner gate within which the good things were, then they shut it in their face and kept them out in the cold. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Mowbray) had said in his speech on Wednesday last that, as the Bill had only been printed on Thursday, the University of Oxford had not time to petition the House against the measure, but that was no argument against the Bill. If they had to wait in all cases to reform corporate bodies until those bodies invited reformation, they would have to wait for a very long time. If a Bill was brought forward to reform the Corporation of London, should they take the opinion of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen upon it? The Convocation at Oxford and the Senate at Cambridge were composed of highly respectable persons, but they did not represent the public opinion of the Universities. If the House wanted to find out the real feeling of the Universities upon this subject they must go to the Universities themselves, and to the gentlemen who were engaged there in the laborious work of tuition. These were the men who were the brain of the Universities, and they were ably represented in that House by the hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) and the hon. and learned Member for the city of Oxford (Mr. Vernon Harcourt). If the House went to them it would find that there was not only a majority, but a growing majority in favour of this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had said— "Pass this Bill and you will destroy the religious character of the Universities." That would be a grievous penalty indeed, and he, for one, would not he prepared to bear the blame of it. But he must add his voice to the protest of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General that this Bill would have no such effect. He protested against the assumption which underlay every sentence of the right hon. Gentleman, that men could be made religious or irreligious by Act of Parliament. Then it was said—"If you pass this Bill, will the religious parents of England send their sons to the Universities?" But did the right hon. Gentleman forget that the persons to be admitted by this Bill would be drawn from the great body of Christian Dissenters of England, than whom there were no men more anxious about the religious education of their children? He defied the right hon. Gentleman to say that the standard of religious education was lower in Wales or Scotland than it was in the most orthodox county in England. Then an argument was founded upon the names of the Colleges; but surely it might as well, be argued that Ave Maria Lane and Paternoster Row must belong to the Church. It was said that they would have no security that the religious worship of the College chapels would be maintained. But the Bill provided for that. He could no more see how the presence of Dissenters in the University would be incompatible with the daily performance of worship in the chapels than the presence of Dissenters in a parish was incompatible with the due celebration of worship in the parish church. If ever there was a time when the Church of England could be said to be on her trial it was now, and was this the time to come down to that House and proclaim to the country that the position of the Church of England in the Universities was so insecure that she could not hold her own unless she were hemmed round by these absurd and obsolete safeguards? Such a defence as that was doing the Church of England more injury than the attacks of her most uncompromising enemies. If the Church of England would only trust a little more to the purity and simplicity of her doctrine than to these external sources of strength, he believed she would gain ten times more than by this miserable system of ecclesiastical ex- clusion. He looked upon this measure as a great act of justice, and believing that it was for the true interest of the nation, and that the cause of religion would gain rather than suffer by it, he should give it his hearty support.

Sir, although as a new Member, I have much hesitation in taking part in a debate of such importance, I am compelled to do so by the keen interest which the Scotch Universities have in the question. This interest is not merely abstract, but is, as I shall hope to show, immediate and practical, being alluded to in the second clause of the Bill before the House. It is now fifteen years since Parliament abolished all religious tests among the Lay Faculties of the Northern Universities, and the experience which they have thus gained ought to be some guide to us now, either by confirming the apprehensions or removing the fears of those who doubt the wisdom of the proposed measure. From the time of the Reformation to 1853, the Professors of the Scotch Universities were subject to severe tests, and for a portion of that period to the vigilant visitation of the national Church; and by an Act of 1585 our graduates were included. The tests were perplexing in their variety; and although usually Presbyterian, yet at one time they were as strictly Episcopalian as those now in use at Oxford and Cambridge. Ultimately, in 1707, the Act of Security enjoined upon all Professors, who were then the sole academic governors of the Universities, the signature of the Westminster Confession of Faith "as the confession of their faith." These words were too solemn and significant to be lightly treated, but their application led to so many inconveniences that one or two Universities—notably that of Edinburgh—declined to enforce the Act, while the others which obeyed the law were in constant trouble in consequence of it. In 1853 my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate introduced an Act for the total abolition of tests in the Lay Faculties of the Scottish Universities. The noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) moved the second reading of this Act, and was met with strong opposition of a like character, and, in like terms, to that used on the present occasion. The then Member for the University of Oxford (Sir Robert H. Inglis) urged that the severance of the lay faculties from the Church of Scotland would be injurious to the highest interests of that Church. He stated that the direct consequence of admitting Dissenters among the governing bodies of the Universities would be to damage the theological teaching of the ministers of the Church who were then, as they are now, educated within the Universities. He even feared that, if the measure passed, the Universities themselves would be soon torn from the bonds which united them to our common Christianity. The hon. Baronet predicted that, if the Act of Security were tampered with, the union of the two countries would be endangered, although it had been ratified by the solemn Oath of the Queen. The hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) also warned the House that they were enacting a measure for filling the chairs of our Scottish Universities with infidels and Papists. Scotland was, therefore, fully warned that disasters would follow the adoption of the Act—the picture of that "terrible future," as the hon. Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Mowbray) has now called it, being painted with as dark a background, and with as gloomy colours, as we have seen used on the present occasion. But what have been the actual results of our experience? Half an ordinary generation and a whole professorial one have passed since 1853, and not a single infidel nor one Roman Catholic occupies a chair amongst us. Dissenters in abundance have professorial seats, and this may strengthen the fears of the hon. Gentleman opposite. Not a few of these have come from Oxford and Cambridge, and are much valued by us, but these signers of the Thirty-Nine Articles, and the three Articles of the 36th Canon, have never attacked the Church as established by law in Scotland. Free Churchmen and United Presbyterians, I am glad to say, also occupy our chairs; but, nevertheless, the Church of Scotland, through the Theological Faculties, continues to train its future ministers with the most perfect confidence. The graduates have now received a large share in the government of the University. They are associated into a General Council, or, as it would be termed in Oxford, a Convocation, with a power, which the latter does not possess, of initiating reforms. The majority of this Council, I believe, consists of Dissenters, when you include Episcopalians under that category, and yet they have never, by a single act in their academical capacity, tried to loosen the ties which bind the Theological Faculties to the Church. Our ministers are trained by a three-years' curriculum, and then may take theological degrees, which, incredible though it may appear to hon. Gentlemen opposite, are not cumbered by tests of any kind. Though Dissenters can and do take these degrees in divinity, I have never heard of an instance in which they use their academical vantage ground to assail the Church of Scotland. The fact is, that our Theological Faculties act in the most perfect harmony with the Lay Faculties; and, in my ten years' residence in Edinburgh, I have never met a single minister of the Church of Scotland, who has not cordially approved of the abolition of the tests by the Act of 1853. Then, as religion has not suffered by the abolition of tests, we may be assured that the temporal interests of our Universities have actually been benefited by the change. For ten years before the Act of 1853 the Scottish Universities were losing their hold on the affections of the people; for the Free Church had spread Dissent over the land, and one-half the nation was not in accord with the national Church. Steps were taken to raise Colleges for the purpose of competing with the ancient Universities, which for centuries had been closely bound up with the national life. But since tests have been abolished, complete sympathy has been established between the Universities and the people. The proof of this is, that both students and graduates have increased. In the University of Edinburgh, with which I am best acquainted, if we take the averages of ten years before the Act and of ten years subsequent to it, the increase of students is 12 per cent, and that of graduates is 170 per cent. This gratifying increase of academic activity, as shown by graduation, is, however, partly accountable to other reforms which followed in the train of the first. Surely, Sir, I was right in stating that the Scotch experience is worthy of your attention, It is true that I have been obliged to confine our religious experience to our Theological Faculties, because our northern Univer- sities have no religious teaching in the Lay Faculties. We may be wrong in this, though I do not think we are. It is true that there is neither denominational teaching in our primary schools. nor a mixture of religion with secular instruction in our Universities, yet no one will accuse Scotland of being an irreligious nation. At the same time, the supporters of the Bill now before the House—although they think that the trumpet-note of alarm that religion is in danger has been sounded too loudly—do not wish to interfere with the established system of combining secular with religious teaching in Oxford and Cambridge. All that I contend for is this—that if infidelity, if irreligion, if hostility to the Church be necessary consequences of the abolition of tests, then they were more likely to crop up in rank luxuriance under our free Scottish system than they will under the closer collegiate system of the English Universities. That they have not done so proves that the fears of hon. Gentlemen opposite are altogether illusory. The right hon. Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. Mowbray) denied that Oxford and Cambridge Universities are national institutions, and described them as special institutions held in trust for a particular denomination. This argument we on this side of the House are not likely to admit; but I agree with the right hon. Gentleman in the first part of his statement, that they cannot claim to be truly national institutions, when, as a fact, they limit their privileges to from one-third to one-half of England and exclude Scotland and Ireland. I claim for Scotland the right to participate in all the educational advantages of the great English Universities. We freely recognize in them a finer culture and a more extended scholarship than we are able to offer in our own Universities. The love for the English Universities, which induces so many Scottish students to attend them, existed in the breasts of my countrymen long before Oxford and Cambridge had loaves and fishes, in the form of endowments, to tempt us over the Border. It requires little knowledge of the early history of Oxford to know that she was divided into two nations—one of northern men, the other of southern men. They were not unequal, either in number or in power, and fought against each other many fierce intellectual conflicts of Realists and Nominalists, and side by side with each other many fierce physical battles of Gown against Town. These memories cling to us yet, and we still send our students, by the aid of scholarships, to obtain the high culture of the English Universities. The result has been beneficial to the whole nation. By the channel of communication which these scholarships keep open, you have received from us such men as the right rev. Prelate at the head of the English Church. We ask then, as a part of a common kingdom, that our Scottish Presbyterian students should enter the Universities—which rich endowments have raised to so high a position in learning and scholarship—upon the same footing as Episcopalian students. I hear an hon. Member say that they are free to enter. That is true, but they are only free to win honours shorn of all that renders them valuable; for, surely academic degrees divested of academic privileges are singularly barren. If you throw open the gates of an orchard to the boys of a mixed school, and tell them that all are free to enter, it would be a mockery, when they did enter, to rule that only the Episcopalian boys should climb the trees and pluck the fruits, while the Dissenting boys must keep to the dead level of the walks. Would you be surprised if the generous nature of boys revolted against the partiality, and if they viewed it both as an insult and as an injury. But this is practically what is done to the youth of the nation who enter the portals of the great English Universities. It does not mend the matter to say that tests have now worn down to such mere formality, that they are readily accepted by Dissenters, and especially by Presbyterians. These tests deter men of keen conscience and quick susceptibilities from accepting Fellowships, though they readily admit those of lax religious faith; but this, Sir, is their condemnation. The Solicitor General referred to the religious persuasion of the Senior Wrangler of the present year as a barrier to his obtaining the fruition of his labours; but this is no isolated case. I know a man who was Second Wrangler in his year, and who has since honoured the University which trained him by advancing pure mathematical science more than any man in this country. His name is as well known and honoured in Continental States as it is here; but this man, I believe, never even obtained his degree, certainly not his Fellowship. If the endowment of a Fellowship be worth anything, here was the occasion for its application as a means for giving learned leisure to a man whose genius produced fruits of no marketable value. But my friend was a Jew, like the Senior Wrangler of this year, and so Cambridge rejected him, and he had to win bread for himself as an actuary in an insurance office. It is true that I could cite cases of an opposite kind, in which Presbyterians, though strongly attached to their own forms of worship, yet, finding little repugnant to their doctrines in the English Church, have signed the Articles and conformed to its services in order to enjoy the Fellowships, but only till they had an opportunity of returning to their first love. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen laugh, but surely tests taken in such a loose fashion cannot benefit the Church which requires them, and may sear the consciences of those who take them. The temptation to do so is great—for infidelity after signature is not attended by penalty. In conclusion, let me express the hope that the effects of this measure will be as beneficial to the English Universities as a like measure has been to the northern Universities. Notwithstanding the splendid histories of Oxford and Cambridge, and their present educational glories, there must be a feeling of regret on the part of their friends that they are so scantily attended by students. In Scotland we have one University student for every 900 of the population; in England, including Durham, and allowing 1,000 matriculated students for London University, there is only one student to 4,400 of the population. No leading State, except Russia, has such scanty numbers. The conclusion is obvious that the English Universities are not now in accord with the mind of the English people. It was not so in past periods of their history. At one time Oxford alone had a much larger proportion of students to the population than Scotland has now; and even after the Reformation she had three times as many as at present. Its educational revenues in those prosperous times were but moderate. Less than one year of Oxford's revenues would now buy up the whole capital of the University of Edin- burgh and all the salaries of its Professors capitalized at twenty years purchase; and yet, with all these gigantic resources, Oxford possesses only 200 more students than the poor northern University. What can be the reason for this small diffusion of her educational powers? It is not owing to any weakness in her teachers, for they are of the highest eminence and scholarship; it cannot be due to a restricted curriculum, for that is now extended and liberal; it certainly does not result from stinginess in money rewards, for they lavish these with a prodigal hand. Indeed, we are told by the Rev. Mark Pattison, the Rector of Lincoln College, in his excellent work on academical organization, that one out of three students at Oxford are paid for attendance in the form of scholarships. Yet, with all these academic inducements and bounties, the students only slowly increase, and merely in proportion as the bounties are augmented. I believe that there is more than one cause for this want of sympathy between the Universities and the people, but the main cause certainly is that they have raised a denominational barrier between themselves and half the nation. This Bill does not propose to knock down this barrier, but it makes many breaches in it, through which numerous students will pass. Burke has said—

"The citizens of a State are a partnership; a partnership in all science, in all art, in every virtue, in all perfection."

It would be well for the English Universities if they recognized fully the truth of these noble words, and if they gave to all citizens alike, and without reserve, the freest partnership in those treasures of learning and of virtue which they are so well calculated to impart, and which the nation has entrusted to their keeping.

thought the argument which the hon. Member for the University of Edinburgh opposite (Mr. Playfair) had just addressed to the House was most peculiar, notwithstanding the eloquence in which it was clothed. The hon. Gentleman, for example, omitted to allude to the fact, that the appointment of Heads of Houses at Oxford or Cambridge were not made or held on the same terms as the appointment of Professors in the Scotch Universities. The hon. Member had alluded to expressions used by the late Sir Robert Inglis and himself in 1853, when the tests for admission to the Professorships of the Scotch Universities were about to be abolished, and when he had asserted that these Professorships might be held thenceforth by infidels or Roman Catholics. He denied that such had been the result; but was the hon. Member prepared to say that no person who disbelieved the great truths of Christianity held a Professorship in any of the Scotch Universities? The hon. Member shrank from such an assertion; indeed, if he had not, it was evident the tests were abolished; that he had no criterion by means of which he could dispute the opposite of his inference. All this part of the hon. Member's argument rested on mere assumption. While paying the highest tribute to the superior culture of the English Universities the hon. Member expected the House to accept his dictum, that none of the Professors at any of the Universities in Scotland disputed the great truths of Christianity, or had a leaning towards the Church of Rome. And how did the hon. Member support his assertion? What was his illustration? One of the hon. Gentleman's main objections to the system in force at Oxford and Cambridge was that it had excluded a gentleman who was of the Jewish persuasion, and, consequently, not a Christian. The hon. Gentleman had failed to give any valid assurance that the anticipations which he had formed in 1853 had not been realized, or that they might not be realized. The hon. Member for Denbighshire (Mr. G. O. Morgan) had been kind enough to declare that his (Mr. Newdegate's) religious opinions were identical with those held by the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley). Now, he felt bound in justice to the hon. Member for Peterborough to remind the House of the fact that the hon. Gentleman had repeatedly declared, that there was no such identity, although it sometimes happened that the hon. Gentleman's views coincided with his own on subjects relating to the effects of the Roman Catholic religion. With regard to his own opinions, they were Catholic in the sense of the Church of England, and therefore strongly Protestant—as strongly Protestant as those of any Italian. Such were his opinions, but they were not shaped by the hon. Member for Peterborough, as that hon. Gentleman had expressly stated more thanonce. The hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) had asked the House not to insist upon retaining the existing tests, because he asserted that the law would be sufficient without them. It appeared to him that our modern progress was very re-actionary, and he would mention a striking instance, which proved the truth of this assertion. Formerly the law enacted that no one except a Protestant should occupy the Throne of these realms, but Parliament found this security so insufficient, that forcible and emphatic declarations were enacted and were by law required to be made, and had been made by every Sovereign since the days of James II. The tendency of the present day, however, seemed to go back to the practice of the period when there was no such test. The hon. Member for Denbighshire had declared that the Universities were not national, meaning probably that they were not cosmopolitan. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge were no less national than the Church of England, and he denied that the Church of England was not a national institution simply because Dissenters existed. Indeed, if he were to hold the opposite doctrine he should be adopting the intolerance of the Church of Rome, whereas he maintained that the tolerance of the Church of England and the open existence of Dissent were tests of her nationality. The hon. Member's statement, however, if true, which it was not, afforded no argument for sweeping away the securities by which the law had hitherto limited the teaching of the Universities to the doctrines of the Church of England. If any charge of intellectual or literary deficiency could be substantiated against Oxford and Cambridge, the promoters of the present Bill would be able to make out a case; but, in point of fact, their excellence in these respects was the cause of envy, and it was to gratify that envy the House was asked to abolish the limits within which the Universities had attained so high a degree of excellence. He (Mr. Newdegate) believed that if the constituencies of the kingdom had been fairly informed on this subject the majority would be found to be adverse to the Bill. With reference to the Amendment intended by the hon. and learned Member for Richmond, he observed that they afforded evidence of his conscious- ness of the necessity for some test or criterion of the religious opinions held by the Heads of the Colleges; but, inasmuch as his Amendment would require the test of each Head of a College alone, he would thereby disassociate the Head of the House from the Fellows of the College, and would destroy the constitution of the Colleges. And the hon. Gentleman concluded by an exhortation to Members on the Opposition side of the House to yield their opinions, and to acquiesce in that which they disapproved. That doctrine, if accepted generally must prove fatal to all Parliamentary government which depends upon the honest expression of opinion in that House; because it would destroy all sense of personal responsibility, not merely the responsibility of the Administration of the day, but all sense of personal responsibility on the part of each Member of this House to those who had returned him as their representative on the faith of his fairly expressing their opinions. He had been returned to that House to oppose this measure, and it was a duty in which he would not fail.

said, I shall not detain the House, but I desire to say a few words on this very important question. I am glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Mowbray) has admitted that the Universities are "national" institutions. This clears the ground; but he goes on to say that, being such, they are "invested with a distinct trust, connecting education with a definite form of religious teaching." It is in the first place to be observed that the "form" now used is not that originally intended. Hon. Gentlemen opposite may talk as they please about being "Catholics," but I maintain that it is the glory of the Church of England that she is a Protestant institution. Moreover, I say that the venerable men who founded the Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge would not have approved the form of religion now taught there. At the Reformation the mind of the nation changed, and the consequent change in the Universities was "inevitable," as the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General has justly remarked. And yet we are often told that these tests, as now established, cannot, under any circumstances, be altered. Now I desire to consider this question from a point of view somewhat different from that which has been sometimes taken. The law which creates these tests was a natural law in former times, when intolerance was the rule of the State. We then had one predominant religion, starving out, if possible, all other religions. The law, in short, adopted one religion as true and declared all others to be false. All such intolerant laws, of which the present law is a remnant, said, in short—"We have the truth, and we will force you directly or indirectly to take our view of the truth." This is entirely contrary to the spirit of Christianity, which says—"I have the truth, and I will, if I can, persuade you to accept it." The times are past when torture or imprisonment for religious belief are possible; but such a law as that we are discussing amounts, in fact, to an indirect persecution—["No, no !"]—I say "yes;" Hon. Gentlemen may say "no" as long as they like: the fact remains. Hon. Gentlemen opposite say there is no grievance; but I say there is a grievance. The first thing I did on coming down to the House tonight was to present a petition from a gentleman who was Senior Wrangler and First Smith's Prizeman in 1861, and who has ever since resided in Cambridge; but who, because he is a Dissenter, has not had his Fellowship, nor been admitted to his proper position in the Senate of the University. The truth is that the Dissenters go to the University as an inferior caste, and are like goods marked "dangerous." I am sometimes disposed to think that you had better never have removed your old restrictions than attempt to remain in your present illogical position. But then we are perpetually met with what the Solicitor General calls the non possumus argument. We are told that we must look to the will of the founder and abide by it. Now, in the first place, speaking generally, I think we allow men to speak too long after they are dead. But, in the next place, you do not respect the will of the founder. Only lately, the noble Lord the Member for Calne (Lord Fitzmaurice) told me of a case where a Roman Catholic who had distinguished himself as a graduate was refused a Fellowship in his College which had been founded by his own ancestor. There was no respect here to the "will of the founder." But then, it is said, even if you do not have the same religious teaching as that indicated by the founder, you must have some religious teaching. The hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) has shown that, even if the Bill pass, you will still have religious teaching. But I would ask, if you are so fearful of scepticism and so jealous as to your religious teaching, how is it that you do not keep out this scepticism with your present machinery? I confess I do not think that any harm would be done by the addition to your numbers of a few distinguished men who do not conform to the Church of England. They are certainly far better than men who profess to conform and do not in heart believe what they say when they accept these tests. Hon. Gentlemen are fighting with the creations of their own imagination when they say that, because a few Dissenters are added to the Senate, the whole teaching and government of the Universities will be changed. There is a great inconsistency in the whole matter. You allow the Parsee and the Dissenter and the Church of England man to mingle together as students at the age when they are peculiarly susceptible to impressions from men of their own age, and when, therefore, these heretical people are most dangerous, and you express no fears; but when they are grown up and have attained to distinction, you are afraid of them and exclude them. And now I want to ask hon. Gentlemen opposite what is this religious training which is, as we are told, of such great importance to the nation. I cannot describe it from my own experience, as I was not educated in either of the old Universities; but I will describe it in the words of one of the most distinguished graduates that the University of Oxford has produced in our days. He says—

"For years—I had almost said centuries—the prevailing temper of the governors of Oxford has been steadily set againt religious earnestness, from whatever quarter it may come."

And again—

"I do say that to speak of the Oxford system having been founded on religious influences or guided by personal religious teaching in any sense which could be interfered with by the presence of Nonconformists in Convocation is really to fly in the face of the plainest facts, and to take refuge in the merest theory and imaginative dreaming."

These are the words of Her Majesty's Solicitor General. Something has been said about the College chapels, but I deny that mere going to College chapel is religious training. Moreover, whatever good there is in it is expressly retained in the Bill. But after all, says the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite—if you get this Bill, something else will follow. So it may if the Bill works well, but not otherwise. There is nothing to force Parliament on, if this legislation proves injurious. I am satisfied, Sir, that there is no danger in this Bill. You will not find Dissenters more sceptical than Members of the Church of England; and, more than this, I am sure that the young men who come from the families of Dissenters will be found to have had just as careful a training as those who have been brought up in the Church; and even if Dissenters should hereafter have more power in the Universities, the hon. and learned gentleman may still use the old motto, Dominus illuminatio mea, without fear. Before I conclude. I wish to refer to the speech of the hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope) last year, in which he made some strong remarks as to the dangers of "free thought." I think, Sir, we ought not to give way to these fears. It is an age of inquiry, and the University ought not to shrink from it. We cannot stop the progress of men's minds, especially when we have a free Press. It is the old story about hedging in the cuckoo. Men will think; and thought will be free within as well as without the Universities. Good men are too timid, and act as if they had no confidence in the faith they profess. If they believe in their religion, they believe that it will prevail. I will only add that I do not think the declaration proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Richmond can be accepted. I have heard his speech with much pleasure and admiration, but I do not like his proposal. I ask the House to pass the Bill, and thus to break off another link from the chain which connects us with the times of intolerance and persecution, on which we look back with no kindly feelings.

, who rose amid cries of "Order," said, that the question was one which peculiarly affected his constituency (Cambridge University), and it had assumed a new complexion since the speech of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer). ["Order, order !"]

The hon. Member is out of Order in now addressing the House.

The Motion for adjournment having been defeated, I was rising to speak upon the Main Question.

The hon. Gentleman having made a Motion has exhausted his powers in this debate.

, who rose amid cries of "Spoke," said, that he should conclude with a Motion.

The hon. Gentleman having spoken in this debate cannot make any Motion.

wished to point out to the House—

The hon. Member having seconded a Motion cannot speak again.

said, he rose to Order. He apprehended that having merely seconded the Motion by a gesture he was at liberty to address the House on the Main Question.

The hon. Member having seconded the Motion is not entitled to address the House.

said, he thought that the speeches addressed to the House to-night called for an answer from that (the Opposition) side, and they had a right to expect that the House would hear them; but, as he had himself held out expectations to his right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Bouverie) that they would wait to see what course would be taken upon the Amendments of which notice had been given, and as he knew that great numbers of hon. Gentlemen were informed that there would be no division on the second reading, he thought that they were bound to allow the debate how to be brought to a conclusion. He hoped, therefore, that the Motion for adjournment would not be pressed, and that he should then be allowed to say a few words upon the Main Question.

asked whether it was not competent for an hon. Member who had spoken upon the Main Question to move the adjournment?

Sir, the silence which my hon. and learned Friend (Sir Roundell Palmer) has preserved for so many years upon this question is at last broken, and the House has listened to his remarks with obvious interest. I was not in the House in 1854, and therefore was not able to take any share in those debates in which he took a prominent and, no doubt, very effective part. My hon. and learned Friend tells us that at that time he foresaw the course of events, and rather pointed to my noble Friend who is not now in the House (Lord Stanley) as having been the author of the present measure. I believe that at that time my noble Friend drew a distinct line between the Universities and the Colleges. Even in more recent times, within the last two years, the Solicitor General himself was not prepared to interfere with the Colleges, as he has by the present Bill and the measure of last year. Upon the first occasion when he introduced a Bill on this subject he said distinctly that it would interfere only with the Universities; he kept it entirely apart from the plan of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Bouverie). He added, "I have nothing to say upon that Bill," and though I know he was even then in some doubt upon the subject, he took no part in supporting that Bill, and did not even vote upon it. This was what occurred in 1866 and 1867, and it was not till 1868 that the Solicitor General combined the Bill of my right hon. Friend with his own measure. Now, I mention these things, not for the purpose of throwing any discredit upon those whose opinions have so advanced, but I may justly claim for those who took a different view that they prophesied that that course must be taken, and that that little Bill was the precursor of a much larger Bill, just as the present measure is only the precursor of some very much larger one. [Cheers.] The hon. Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) cheers that sentiment. He has always wished that a permissive or quasi permissive Bill should give place to a compulsory Bill, and no doubt in a short time we shall see this Bill followed by measures as strong and as compulsory as those which we predicted when the Bill was introduced in 1866. My hon. and learned Friend has endeavoured to lead the House to the conclusion that this Bill will practically effect nothing in the Universities, that it will leave things exactly where they are, that we need not be in the least afraid of it, and that though there were logical sequences to the Bill of 1854, there are none to this Bill. Now, is that the case? Are there no such logical sequences to the present measure? What has he told us? Why, that practically the connection of the University with the Church of England will be just what it was before; that the University will be a place for the promotion of religion and learning just in the same sense as before; that nothing will happen on the passing of this Bill, which practically requires the religion of the Church of England from those who are in a professional and tutorial capacity. If we are to judge a measure by the intentions of the introducer of it, as the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) stated, what were the words of the proposer of the present Bill in 1867, when he had not arrived at the conclusion of advocating anything like this measure, for then he did not deal with the Colleges at all, but only with the Universities? The hon. and learned Member for Exeter (the Solicitor General) then said, speaking on the second reading of his Bill—

"I am ready to admit the Bill is a small one and only deals with one definite point; nor do I expect if it were to pass that any great or important changes would take place in consequence. But, on the other hand, I should not be dealing candidly with the House if I disguised from it that the Bill put forward a very important principle. It will establish the nationality of the University as against the Church of England—it will destroy its exclusive character and change its constitution."

That was explicit, and what my hon. and learned Friend says he means. The hon. and learned Member for Richmond has alluded to what took place in 1866, and what was said on that occasion had a soothing effect, it appears, on the mind of the hon. and learned Member, who, however, if he had perceived the real meaning of those expressions, should have resisted this measure to the death. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government expressed an opinion with regard to the admission of the Dissenters, and I understood my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond to say that a quotation I had made from that speech did not express the right hon. Gentleman's meaning according to the passage which he afterwards read. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government on a recent occasion represented most distinctly the danger of the admission of different creeds into the governing body, specially of the Colleges, and in 1867 he made a speech against the Bill of my hon. and learned Friend, and expressed in strong language the propriety of keeping up the religious character of the Universities, that character being a definite and Church of England one. I admit that there is as much personal religion among Dissenters as among Churchmen, and that many of the Dissenters are men of deep religious feeling, but that renders this question more serious when you bring Dissenters in contact with the Colleges. The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh University (Mr. Playfair) speaks of Oxford as if it were Edinburgh; but the fact is that in Edinburgh the students are spread through the town, while in Oxford there are Colleges, in which, they reside, and if you introduce the element of religious discord into the Colleges you will not be doing that which will conduce to the advantage of those Colleges. At Oxford, there are Colleges with four or five resident tutors, and I assume that if the Bill were to come into operation there would be among them men with too strong religious feelings to allow them to conform to the Church of England. Suppose a Roman Catholic, or a Jew, or an Unitarian to be admitted to a Fellowship in one of these small Colleges. That would alter the relations that existed between the Fellows. The Head might still be of the Church of England, but the conversation, the discipline, everything would be changed. There would no longer be that freedom of intercourse in the discipline, religious as well as other, which existed before. ["Oh !"] The College would be what it was not before, a body of persons living together, with different religious sentiments. And, in addition, persons without religion at all are to be admitted. I admit that the conduct of some persons who are now admitted on taking the test, in indulging in other places in expressions of infidelity—in the College they are bound by a certain respect to decency to pay what is called homage to religion—is disgraceful to them, but it does not follow that the admission of a person without taking any test at all, is desirable, although he may be a more honest man; for the number of those who so disgrace themselves is not great, and they constitute but rare exceptions. According to the statutes of the Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, the Fellows, as a governing body, act together as members of the Church of England, carrying on religious instruction in accordance with that profession. In the case of the Endowed Schools, where persons of all creeds are admitted to the benefit of the schools, this House has always refused to admit Dissenters into the governing body of trustees of any Church of England foundation. The hon. Member argued that if the intentions of the founders of these institutions were to be respected, it should be remembered that the founders were Roman Catholics. That argument introduces a wide question, and has an application not only to Colleges and Universities, but to the Church of England itself. It would establish a principle calculated to pull down the Church of England. Now, I hold that there was not an alteration in the position of the Church of England at the time of the Reformation, but only a fair and reasonable change in the character of the Church, which, having thrown off certain errors, still continued to be the national Church, and entitled to the endowments. On the same principle, I hold that the Colleges are entitled to their endowments. I should like to see something done to remedy what some may feel to be a grievance. I wish very much there could be created out of the funds of the Universities—of the Colleges if it may be—Fellowships which may be held as a reward by those who come up, whatever their creed may be, and whom we have admitted to all the benefits of education; and I should be glad if they could be put in a position which would show that they had won honours at the University; but I object to an admixture in the governing bodies, in the Colleges, and in the University itself, which must necessarily lead to their being eventually secularized. If the time ever comes which you anticipate, when persons of different creeds shall be blended together in the governing bodies, the time must be when respect for conscience among the men composing them will eventually lead to the secularization of those endowments, and to getting rid of all connection between religion and the University as such. That is what we protest against. That is what was foreseen by Sir William Heathcote, in 1866, when he wished to bring this controversy to a satisfactory conclusion. For three years my hon. and learned Friend (Sir Roundell Palmer) has been looking on in silence, and at last he has been compelled to speak. He proposes certain Amendments, and I should be sorry to say offhand what I think of them, but I see plainly enough that hon. Gentlemen opposite do not want to change one test for another, and they would rather prefer that which exists than that which my hon. and learned Friend proposes. At the same time, as my right hon. Friend (Mr. Mowbray) said, there is a strong desire if it be possible to bring this question to a conclusion; it must be a satisfactory conclusion; and, as far as I am concerned, I should be glad to give my assent to anything I could accept without violation of principle; but so far as I can see at present, I do not believe that these clauses, which it will be necessary to consider carefully, would be such that I could assent to them as a settlement without violation of principle. I express myself strongly upon these matters, because I feel strongly. I trust that hon. Members will not be led by the bigotry of latitudinarianism to intolerance to the Church of England, but will permit us to hold, without intolerance, to that which we already possess, and will believe that, in maintaining the right, as I hold, of the Church of England to those endowments for its benefit in the Colleges and in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, I am not seeking to deprive them of privileges to which I do not believe them to be entitled. I am desirous at the same time that they should have the benefits of a liberal education in the Universities without claiming positions there which, I believe, were never intended for them, and would not be a benefit to them, but would lead to fresh disputes and controversies. With that belief I have always opposed this Bill in its present shape and I always shall.

Sir, it being understood that no division is to be taken at this stage of the Bill, and that there has not been any desire on the part of the Universities, or those who have spoken for them—as I can affirm—to prevent a liberal education being given in the Universities to those who are not members of the Church of England, the only question we have to consider is how we can reconcile education, followed by all honours and rewards, with certain qualifications, such as are required in other institutions called national, for members of the governing body. It is with a view to this reconciliation that I am anxious to see the Amendments of the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer). They have been lucidly explained, but the House ought to see them, and the Universities and Colleges should have an opportunity of considering them, before any definite action is taken. For this reason, while I cannot vote for the second reading—for I cannot take the Bill as it stands—I am willing to wait until we I have seen the Amendments, and, therefore, in case of a division, I shall take the course—unusual for me—of leaving the House, in order to reserve for myself the opportunity of considering the Bill and the Amendments in Committee, and seeing whether a settlement can be arrived at which may be satisfactory to all parties.

Sir, I will not take up time now by replying to the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. It may be convenient, perhaps, as my hon. and learned Friend has given me an opportunity of seeing his Amendments, that I should state how they strike me and what of them in principle I can accept and what I cannot accept. As I understand the Amendments of my hon. and learned Friend, they may be divided broadly into two parts—first, certain verbal Amendments which he thinks will make the Bill more clear than it is at present, and the insertion of a clause by which the doctrine, discipline, and public worship of the Church of England, according to the existing ordinances and statutes of the Universities, subject to all future legal changes and all inherent powers of change in the Universities and Colleges, shall, so far as this Act is concerned, be preserved intact. These Amendments will only make more clear the object of the Bill, and, as far as I am concerned, they shall be accepted frankly. By the other Amendment my hon. and learned Friend intends to propose the adoption of what may be called a negative test; and to provide that lay Professors shall undertake as Professors not to teach anything contrary to Holy Scripture or the doctrine and discipline of the Church of England. At whatever risk of misconstruction and of pain to myself in differing from one for whom I have so profound a respect, I must say that no consideration will induce me to accept the latter Amendment. I say that for this other reason—it appears to me to be unnecessary, and it will therefore be purely mischievous. I have never disguised the difficulties surrounding this measure. I should be ashamed of myself if I spoke with anything but the respect and sympathy to which they are entitled of the views and apprehensions as to the security of the future religious teaching of the Universities which, although they appear to mo to be quite unfounded, are entertained sincerely by hon. Gentlemen opposite. I will only ask them to be equally fair with me. I will ask them to admit that there is a considerable amount of evil which needs to be remedied. I ask them to admit that there is a certain amount of wrong and injustice which calls loudly for redress. No measure of this kind can be passed into law without a certain amount of risk in theory and it may be of evil in practice. The question for us as statesmen and lovers of our country is this,—Is the gain we seek worth the price at which we propose to purchase it? Is the state of things which we propose for the future better or not better than the state of things which we know exists? This I conceive to be the true issue in this case. Upon that issue my own judgment is in favour of going forward, and upon that issue with the greatest respect, and yet with perfect confidence, I venture to ask the judgment of the House of Commons.

said, he would beg to give notice that he would tomorrow move that, in conformity with the Message from the Lords, a Committee of six Members be appointed for the purpose of taking into consideration the arrangement of Business in relation to the two Houses in the hope of devising some means for improving them. That would best be done by moving that the Message of the Lords be taken into consideration. It would come on immediately after the Notices as an Order of the Day.