The unfortunate cause of the absence of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has been already referred to this evening by more than one hon. Gentleman, and it may be satisfactory to the House for me to state that since I came here this afternoon I have received the latest information respecting his health. The bulletin is as follows:—

"August 2, 4.15 p.m.

"Mr. Gladstone is doing as well as could be expected, but the fever continues."

"W. JENNER.

"A. CLARKE."

I may add that the Employers' Liability Bill will be taken to-morrow, and if not then completed will be proceeded with on Wednesday.

I wish to make a short statement, in the unavoidable absence of the Prime Minister, in reference to a Motion which has been put on the Paper by the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson). On Friday last my right hon. Friend stated that he would to-day inform the hon. Baronet as to the arrangements he proposed to make with regard to the Motion which stands in his name on the Paper in reference to the proposed recall of Sir Bartle Frere. In consequence of his illness, my right hon. Friend has asked me to state what he would have stated himself if he had been present. The House will recollect that on the 5th of last month my right hon. Friend, in reply to the hon. Baronet, said—

"Her Majesty's Government had received with great concern intelligence from the Cape showing that the proposals of the Cape Ministry for the promotion of confederation among the Colonies had been frustrated. He was aware that that fact had a serious bearing upon the statement he addressed to the House on an early day of the Session, but it was not possible for the Government, from the succinct telegraphic notices that had arrived, to form any mature judgment on the circumstances, and, consequently, all he could say was that when the despatches giving a full account of the matter arrived they would have the full and serious consideration of the Government."

Those despatches have now arrived, and have been seriously considered by the Government. The conclusion at which Her Majesty's Government have arrived is that there had never existed between themselves and Sir Bartle Frere that harmony of opinion on many important questions now pending in South Africa which alone could have made it desirable in itself, or fair towards Sir Bartle Frere, that he should remain at the Cape, but for the reason that he had been specially sent out to forward, and it appeared possible that it was in his power materially to forward, the policy of Confederation. This special reason has now disappeared—certainly not in consequence of any failure of zeal or ability on the part of Sir Bartle Frere, but solely in consequence of the action of the Cape Parliament in declining to take even the initiatory step of authorizing a Conference for the discussion of that question. Her Majesty's Government have, therefore, decided, with regret, that Her Majesty should be advised to replace Sir Bartle Frere by another Governor. I have said that Her Majesty's Government have arrived at this conclusion with regret, because, while Sir Bartle Frere's views differ from theirs on some important questions, they fully recognize his high personal qualities and the distinguished services which he has rendered on many occasions.

asked whether there would be any opportunity afforded for an expression of opinion on this subject by those hon. Members who did not join in the cheer that followed the announcement that Sir Bartle Frere was to be replaced by another Governor?

said, that if his noble Friend, or any other hon. Member, gave Notice of a Motion on the subject, it would be for Her Majesty's Government to consider the course to be taken regarding it. It was hardly possible for Her Majesty's Government, in the present condition of the question, to offer such an opportunity.

asked whether all the Papers relating to the question would be laid on the Table, including the despatch recalling Sir Bartle Frere?

said, he presumed the Papers would be laid on the Table forthwith, and that they would include a copy of the telegraphic despatch recalling Sir Bartle Frere; but the noble Lord had better give Notice of the Question.

asked if, in justice to Sir Bartle Frere, they would include the paragraphs which had been omitted from the despatches already laid before the House, and also unofficial information which had been received as to the course taken by Sir Bartle Frere?

asked his hon. and gallant Friend to give Notice of his Question.

In reply to Sir GEORGE CAMPBELL,

said, he did not think it would be possible to make the Indian Financial Statement before Tuesday week. He hoped, however, to be able either tomorrow or on Wednesday to make a more definite statement on the subject.

said, he understood that the Reports of Mr. Bead and Mr. Pell, the Assistant Commissioners, who went out to America under instructions from the Royal Commission on Agricultural Distress, were nearly completed.

asked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether he had received the Report of the officer who was named to visit the Limerick Junction station; and whether he was prepared to state the substance of that Report, and what action had been taken by the Board of Trade?

Major General Hutchinson, who was directed to visit the Limerick Junction station, has reported to the Board of Trade that the Waterford and Limerick Railway Company have been using anew passenger station without having previously submitted it for inspection, as required by the Regulation of Railways Acts; and he further reports that the use of this new station is not only excessively inconvenient, but also, and particularly at night, dangerous to the passengers using it. Notice was, therefore, at once given to the Company by telegram to cease using the station for passenger traffic; and, at the same time, it was pointed out that no inconvenience to the public need arise if, pending the decision of the Railway Commissioners in the matter, the arrangement previously in force with the Great Southern and Western Railway Company were reverted to. The Board of Trade has since heard from the Company, to the effect that, in compliance with their directions, orders had been given that no more passenger trains shall stop at the new junction station at Limerick.

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he has received a Copy of a Report made by Drs. Sigerson and Kenny to the Dublin Mansion House Relief Committee in reference to the fever in the West of Ireland; and, if so, whether he will lay it upon the Table of the House?

The Mansion House Committee certainly sent me that Report, and I do not for a moment underrate its value; but it is not a Report obtained officially; and I do not think that we ought to lay it on the Table. The public prints will give all the information which it contains to hon. Members interested in it. I may take this opportunity of stating that we have better accounts from the fever districts, and especially from that which gave us most anxiety—namely, Swineford. Dr. Nixon, who was sent specially from Dublin to Swineford, reports that the fever of the latter place has so much diminished that his services will be no longer required, and he proposes to leave for Dublin to-day.

It has been customary, on previous occasions, in moving this Vote to compare the progress which has been made during the past year with that made in the year immediately preceding, and then to ask the Committee for a Vote in Supply. I propose on this occasion, Sir, with the permission of the Committee, to travel over a rather wider field. It is just ten years since my right hon. Friend the present Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster) passed the Education Act, an Act which, I venture to think, will ever be most honourably associated with his name. It seems to me that it will be convenient at the end of a decade, and at the beginning of a new Parliament and a new Administration, to compare the progress which has been made under that measure. There is another reason, Sir, which will entitle the Committee to consider the progress of the last ten years. We have a measure before this House, which has come down from the House of Lords, proposing to complete the work of compulsory education throughout Great Britain; and it is in reference to that that I venture to make a few statements in the course of my educational Budget, which will, I hope, induce the House at once to pass the measure which I shall have to bring forward. It will be remembered by hon. Members of this House who have taken an interest in our educational debates that 10 years ago, at the time my right hon. Friend moved the Education Act of 1870, the subject was very much discussed as to what was really the educational destitution in this country. Former Lord Presidents and Vice Presidents had come to the conclusion that a provision of 300,000 places at our elementary schools would amply suffice to bring in the whole o the children who were outside education. My right hon. Friend (Mr. W. E. Forster), who preceded me in Office, took a very different estimate, and his measure of the destitution was that from 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 children were, in 1879, outside of our elementary schools. I shall be able to show, from the statement I have to make to the Committee, that even this estimate under-estimated he real deficiency. I have to submit some tables, which I hope will prove interesting to the Committee, and will justify the course I am taking to-night. The first statement which I have to make is a statement which I may call a statement of numerical progress, showing what was the state of things in 1870, what was the condition in 1874 when Mr. Gladstone's Government left Office, and what it is at this moment, when they resume it. In 1870 the number of children on our school registers was 1,693,000. In 1874 it had risen to 2,497,000, and in 1879, at the close of the last school year, the numbers were 3,710,000, showing an actual increase in numbers of children in elementary schools of 2,017,000, or 119 per cent of the numbers in 1870. The average number of attendances is also interesting. In fact, the average attendance is a better test of the real progress of this country than school places. In 1870 it was 1,152,000, in 1874 it was 1,679,000, and in 1879 it was 2,595,000, showing an increase in average attendance of 1,443,000, or 125 per cent increase. The next point is the accommodation that has been provided. In 1870 there were 1,878,000 places in our elementary schools in England and Wales. In 1874 there were 2,872,000, nearly 3,000,000, and in 1879 it had risen to 4,142,000, showing an increase of 2,264,000 places, so that the Committee will see that, while the number of children on the registers has increased 119 per cent, the average number of attendances has increased 125 per cent, and the accommodation has increased 121 per cent. The accommodation has not increased faster than the number of children. The rate of grant in 1870 was 9 s. 11¼ d. per head; in 1874 it was 12 s. 5 d. per head, and in 1879 it was 15 s. 5½ d. per head, being an increase of grant of 56 per cent. My last is the percentage of population on the school registers. In 1870 it was only 7·7 per cent; in 1874 it was 10·6 per cent; and in 1879, 14·7 per cent. Now, Mr. Playfair, these figures are very startling, and it is impossible to over-estimate the influence which this steady increase of education will have on the future of the country. But while, Sir, they are startling in their extent, one conclusion that this House has almost universally come to—I think there is no dissension upon this one point—is this:—The growth in the number of attendances in our elementary schools has proved, beyond all doubt, the necessity for, and the efficiency of, compulsion. Without it, we never should have accomplished such results, and without it we never shall cover the area which is at present neglected—we shall never bring in the children who are now outside our elementary schools. It is right to say, Sir, that I do not regard the work of our Predecessors as anything like the completion of the work of education. They have done a great deal; but an immense deal yet remains to do. The compulsory clauses of the Act have been worked with great discretion by the school boards and local authorities of this country. Compulsion had not been applied rigidly or harshly, or too energetically, otherwise it must infallibly have broken down; but there are still great numbers of the population outside our elementary schools. I should be afraid to say how many; but I think I might, without risk or exaggeration, say there are still from 400,000 to 500,000 children who ought to be brought into these schools. Well, Sir, we have evidence every day of how slowly the work of compulsion is carried out. It has been suggested that, as we have had nine or ten years of compulsion, we ought to expect very much better results. It is quite true we have had some nine years of bye-laws; but we have not really had nine or even five years of compulsion. There are districts even in London at this moment where compulsion cannot be rigidly enforced, because there has not been provision made in the way of schools to receive the children. In nearly all the large towns of England—except, perhaps, in Lancashire and Cheshire—there are districts where it is impossible to enforce compulsion absolutely, because there is not sufficient school accommodation. Moreover, the bye-laws deal with certain classes of the population with a great deal of tenderness and consideration. I find that in some of our half- time schools there are children still who have not passed the first Standard, although they are 10 years of age. There are yet greater numbers who have not passed Standards 2 or 3, although those numbers, no doubt, are steadily diminishing. The majority of children would pass Standard 4 with perfect ease at 10 years, and they could not be at work between the ages of five and 10. There are other reasons why compulsion has been very slowly and gradually exercised. The provision of school accommodation itself is a work requiring a longtime. The provision of 2,300,000 Places has involved a great deal of delay, a great deal of consideration, and very large expenditure. The outlay on buildings alone, by school boards and by voluntary bodies, is little, if any, short of £20,000,000 sterling, and I believe the school boards have spent something over £13,000,000 of this sum. [General Sir GEORGE BALFOUR: In England and Wales alone?] Entirely in England and Wales, fully £20,000,000, and probably more, had been spent since the Act passed. At the time of the passing of the Act of 1870, only half the population was under bye-laws, and the increase from 12,000,000 to 18,000,000 has been very gradual. It may be said that something like 200,000 children a-year have been added by means of compulsion to our schools. Since I had the honour of occupying my present position I have received Reports day by day which satisfy me that we have not nearly made the progress that some of our sanguine educationists thought we had made, and we ourselves also hoped that we had made. We are still getting children into our schools who appear wholly neglected, who are wholly ignorant, and who are absolutely untaught, at ages at which they ought to have made a reasonable and respectable attendance. Of course, this must be expected, as long as 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 of the population are not under bye-laws. In the districts of Lancashire, and in most of our great industrial towns, we have a large immigration of people from Ireland whose children have been totally neglected in respect to education. They are, nevertheless, at an age capable of working, and it is impossible for the school boards immediately to deprive their parents of the benefit of the labour of these children, and to apply compulsion rigidly and harshly to them. To do that would be to send the whole family at once to the workhouse. Therefore, compulsion in those districts has to be worked with great carefulness and forbearance, so as not to make it too repugnant. I am exceedingly glad to find that on one point there is perfect accord between the two sides of the House. The noble Lord my Predecessor in the Office of Vice President on Tuesday night last made an excellent and able speech in favour of compulsion and the work of compulsion; and the late Government, in their Report for last year, have summed up their conclusions in these words:—

"Under all these circumstances, the time appears to have come when a measure can, with advantage, be introduced in Parliament empowering school attendance committees to pass bye-laws for their respective districts during the term of 12 months."

That measure is now before Parliament; and I believe, if my noble Friend opposite were moving these Estimates, he would urge upon Parliament to pass this measure. Having said something of the numerical progress during the past, I should like to point out how necessary it is, for the interests of the locality as well as of the children, that we should deal with the rest of this uncovered area, and should bring the children into the schools. It seems unjust for those whom we have called upon to provide school accommodation in all the rural parishes to leave the children any longer outside the schools. We have provided school places; but through the non-enactment of bye-laws there are schools, buildings, and teachers, with all the appliances requisite, waiting for the children. As a result, these schools do not earn their full grant, and in many rural districts the expense consequently falls, with excessive heaviness, on the ratepayers. These 6,000,000 or 7,000,000, too, who are not yet brought under the operation of the Education Act, practically affect all the rest of the districts in the country. The result is to bring into all our towns a number of uncultivated children with whom we have to deal and pass through our schools. Having stated the numerical progress made by the Act, I venture to trouble hon. Members with a Table, which will show at what cost all this work has been effected, and I shall afterwards endeavour to show with what results it has been carried out. Now, first, as to the cost. The Table which I now have the honour to submit to the Committee is, I believe, an entirely new one, for we have never before brought together, so far as I know, the entire cost of elementary education in this country. In 1870, the total sum expended in the instruction of children in elementary schools under inspection in England and Wales was £1,527,000, at an average cost of £1 5 s. 5 d. per scholar. In 1874, the expenditure had risen to £2,620,000, and the average cost per scholar to £l 11 s. 2½ In 1879, the expenditure was £4,774,000, or £1 16 s. 5 d. per scholar. This is how the sum was made up. In 1870 the endowment amounted to £47,000; the voluntary contributions to £419,000; the school fees to £502,000; miscellaneous, £29,000; and grants from Imperial funds £528,000. I will not trouble the Committee with the figures for 1874; but these are the final figures for 1879. Endowments, £136,000; voluntary contributions had risen to £754,000; the rates—which I may explain before I go further was directly for the maintenance and instruction in school, and not for administration expenses at all—were £637,000; the school fees were £1,372,000; miscellaneous £49,000; and the grants from Imperial funds £1,828,000; so that the total cost of elementary schools last year amounted to £4,775,000 against £1,525,000 in 1870. To this large sum of £4,750,000 there has to be added the expenditure for administration. The school boards spent for administration £231,000; for repayment of loans for capital charges, £108,000; for interest on loans £324,000, making a total of £663,000. The managers of voluntary schools spent in building and enlarging schools, £22,000. The Education Department spent in administration, including inspection of schools, £181,000, and by grants to Training Colleges, building grants, school fees, &., £121,000, making the total expenditure on elementary education in England and Wales for the year 1879 £5,762,000. It will be observed, in the figures which I have just read to the Committee, that the cost of maintenance and instruction in the voluntary schools is in excess of the rates, and that the school fees of the children are in excess of both. I should like, as something has been said about school fees, to call attention, to the fact that the school fees in 1870 in all our elementary schools averaged 8 s. 4½ d. ; in 1874 they had risen to 9 s. 8½ d. ; in 1879 they stood at 10 s. 5¼ d. per scholar per annum. So that in place of the general lowering of school fees, which we have heard has taken place, there has been a gradual increase in fees both on the part of school boards and voluntary schools. I believe the average of voluntary schools stands at something like 10 s. 10 d. , being something above that in board schools—the proportion being, voluntary schools, 10 s. 10 d. , and board schools 9 s. 2 d. The Committee will probably next like to know something about the expenditure of school boards. I beg, therefore, to submit a Table showing the exact expense of 1879. It is a rough statement, to some extent; but it is as close as it is possible for us to make it. The population under school boards is about 13,000,000, and the total expenditure was £3,700,000. That sum was spent in the following manner:—In the instruction and maintenance of schools, £1,600,000; industrial schools, £61,000; capital charges, £1,351,000; interest and repayment of loans, £437,000; cost of elections, £8,000—which makes a total of £3,457,000, and leaves a balance of £243,000 as the cost of administration, of local expenditure, and of salaries, &., including cost of enforcing the bye-laws. Considering that this £243,000 is the whole outside expenditure of these schools, and that this sum practically keeps the whole machinery going, and brings the whole of the children of the country not only into the school board schools but also into the voluntary schools, and has, therefore, enormously increased the attendance at those voluntary schools, I really think hon. Members must come to the conclusion that at least on that item there has not been much, if any, extravagance. I have stated, as a fact, that we shall all agree, as a matter which is not indisputable, that provision must be made for the children, and an expenditure must be incurred. But I now come to a point where there is a considerable difference of opinion, and that is as to the educational results of this expenditure. I think I shall be able to show that we have made very remarkable progress, even educationally, during the last nine years. It is not very light-work to have brought in an additional number of more than 2,000,000 children into our schools to bring them under the order and discipline and teaching of trained teachers, to teach them habits of obedience and respect, and to bring to bear on them influences which must act and re-act on the homes of their parents, and on the training of a population that will some lay have submitted to it the most important destinies of this Empire. I believe I can show to the Committee that some very good results have been already obtained. I say we must not hope for immediate results. Many of us will pass away without seeing the full effect of the work we are now doing. When we consider how slow the operation of the compulsory clauses has been, and that there are still thousands of ignorant and neglected children, the short time that this attendance has been enforced, the irregularity which we had to meet, which was the one great difficulty and the greatest bane of our schools, I think I can satisfy the Committee that we have, indeed, made considerable progress. It is quite true we have very loud complaints from educational critics that our curriculum is altogether too ambitious, and that the standard of work is neglected. Even our Inspectors make some complaints, which I am not at all disposed to repress. I am very glad that they should make complaints; we ought to be thankful for them, and I promise the Committee I will never do anything to keep back from it anything the Inspectors may say on the educational condition of the Empire. But I am very happy to say their own results are the best answer to their own complaints. They examine the children, and, on the results of their examination, we give the annual grant, and their own results prove, most conclusively, the remarkable progress which the country is making in education. Let me point out to the Committee just two or three figures which will show the educational progress we are making. The percentage of average attendances of scholars on the register in 1870 was 68·1. In 1874, it had fallen, and it was a gradual decline for some years, because we were getting in what my noble Friend called the gutter children, whose habits were altogether irregular, to 67·2. Last year it had risen to 67·9, and that is the highest average attendance that we have ever been able to record since we have had this system of education in this country. That is very nearly, in fact, 70 per cent; but that does not show the real average attendance, because the half-time children detract very materially from the average. It you take it that 10 per cent of the children are half-timers, from whom the law only requires 180 attendances, that 10 per cent would reduce the whole average by 6 per cent, so that we, practically, have, at this moment, 76 per cent of children regularly in attendance. We shall never get a satisfactory return until we separate the half-timers from the children making full attendances, and then we shall get a real and proper statement of the average attendance of children at the schools. Hon. Members, therefore, I hope, will bear this fact in mind whenever they have to calculate average attendance; and I hope they will also bear in mind to-night the other important fact I have stated, that we have this year reached the highest average attendance we have ever yet reached. Except so far as we are affected by the whole country being brought under bye-laws, we shall, I hope, go on increasing that average attendance. The next Table is a much more important one, for it is a proportion of scholars examined in Standard 4 and upwards. The percentage of children examined in 13 highest standards, in the year 1870, was 19 percent; in 1874, it was 18·1; in 1879, it was 22·l; this year, also, we had the highest number ever examined in these Standards. In 1870 we presented, in Standards 4, 5, and 6, 102,630 children; in 1879, we presented 388,680 children, or an increase of 286,000. Another test will show the improvement in the education. In 1870, 4 s. was allowed for reading, writing, and arithmetic; and that gave a return of 4 s. 10 d. per scholar. In 1874, that grant was reduced to 3 s. Notwithstanding the reduction, the amount earned last year came to 4 s. 9 d. per scholar; so that, although the grant had been reduced 1 s. 11 d. of that had been made up by increased proficiency, which is a most satisfactory fact. There are other illustrations which give a still more striking proof of the progress we are making in some of our large centres. Where school boards have been in operation, and in harmonious co-operation with the authorities, the results are very remarkable. I can give one or two, which I think the Committee will be pleased to be acquainted with. I will first take Manchester. In Manchester there is an excellent Grammar School, one of the largest in the Kingdom, which has, during the last two years, thrown open Scholarships at the School for public competition. I notice in the Reports of Mr. Ogle, our excellent Inspector in that district, that a considerable number of Scholarships were taken by boys who had come from the elementary board schools, and I caused a communication to , be made to him inquiring as to the class of these children, and as to the conditions of the examination. I find that the Scholarships at Manchester Grammar School have been open to competition since Michaelmas, 1878, to all boys between 11 and 14. The regulations are very strict, and the examination paper set last time shows that rather considerable attainments are required. I have a Return of the occupations of the parents of the boys who, coming direct from the public elementary schools, were successful in gaining these Scholarships, and they are almost without exception sons of men belonging to the artizan class. The curriculum was beyond that taught by the elementary schools, and required private study on the part of the scholars. For instance, the examination comprised English, mathematics, physical geography, parsing, grammar, arithmetic, algebra, Euclid, Latin, and French. Yet, out of 72 open Scholarships offered at the Manchester Grammar School, 62 were won by boys from the elementary schools in that town. Now, that is the very best test—the very best possible test—of the work that is being done there. The same thing has happened at Sheffield. The manufacturers in that town have established Scholarships of £10, £15, and £20, to enable boys to continue their education in the schools for two or three years longer than their parents could otherwise afford; and in almost every instance it is the poor boys from the elementary schools who take these Scholarships, and so go to the secondary schools in these towns. One of our best Inspectors told me that whenever Latin is not insisted upon the elementary boys will always win the Scholarships. The fact is, the training is thorough, and is done by good teachers. I know, too, that men of the middle classes, who have sent their children to elementary schools until they are 12 years of age, and then have sent them to the grammar schools, have said that although they make progress in higher subjects during the next three years, they unlearn a good deal of the sound elementary instruction which they had previously obtained. Everybody, in fact, who has studied the matter is aware that, both in intelligence and brightness, a great change is coming over the schools and over the teachers. They have improved in a striking degree. If that wanted a proof I could quote a Report from an Inspector like Mr. Aldis, showing what his opinion is of the class of education now given in elementary schools. He says—

"This last year I have inspected some 245 schools. To nearly half of those I would willingly send my own children, satisfied that they would be kindly treated and intelligently taught."

He adds—

"It is not that the others are really inefficient, but there is a range between these two limits."

Everybody must know that that testimony from him is of the utmost possible value; but it may be said that these striking results can only be obtained in large centres, where you can have good schools and highly paid schoolmasters. I will give the Committee an illustration to the contrary, showing that even in some of our rural parishes spendid work is being done. At Langley, in Buckinghamshire, the population is 1,964, of which one in eight are now in average attendance at school. In 1872 there was no school board; and, of course, there was no school attendance committee; and the number of children in attendance at the elementary school in that year was 33, while the amount of the grant was £11 12 s. A school board was elected in 1875, when the average attendance was raised from 33 to 76, and the grant was £57 13 s. Last year the attendance was raised to 147, and the grant was £146 4 s. 6 d. There are 390 boys in that school, of whom 42 studied English literature, and 22 domestic economy. 55 on the books are under 10 years of age, and 86 are under 12. But there is no child over 10 in Standard 1. There are only 5 over 10 in Standard 2, 9 over 10 in Standard 3, 32 in Standard 4. 40 are in Standards 5 and 6. No children are allowed to labour until they have passed Standard 5, and the Report states that this system is working well. That is an example of what a rural parish can do; and my belief is that with the good influences that can be brought to bear there is no reason, but that, on the contrary, the reasons are the other way—why the rural parishes should not give as good, or better, education than is given in our great industrial towns, where the population is so much less subject to good influences. I am sorry to say that there is one side of my statement which shows a falling off, and that is in the night schools. For my part, I confess that I regret this. The night schools, in 1870, had an average attendance of 74,000. Those figures have steadily diminished, until, in 1879, they had fallen to 52,900. Now, that is not, I think, so much the fault of the schools as of the system adopted. They have only been teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic there—in fact, dealing with the dunces—and, as a consequence, the children have been so much better taught in schools that there is no need for them to go to the night schools at all, where they would merely learn the "three R's." I do think, though, that it would be a good thing if we could still keep some hold of the children after they have left our schools, and could give some encouragement to night schools to teach higher subjects. I presided last year, in the absence of my hon. Friend the Secretary to the Navy (Mr. Shaw Lefevre), over the Knowledge Section at the British Association, and I heard persons make statements as to the wonderful influences that the teaching of botany and geology, and such subjects, had been to children in these night schools; how it kept them together after they had left school, how it interested them and developed their faculties; and it therefore seems to me very desirable to promote a continuance of this education. I will next advert to the teachers; and in respect of them I may say that the supply has now fully overtaken the demand. The noble Lord opposite did well, I think, to reduce the number of pupil teachers in each school to two instead of three. That step was in the right direction. It was in the interests of education, and I believe it was in the interests of good teaching. The number of certificated teachers in 1870 was 12,467. It rose in 1879 to 29,716. The assistant teachers were, in 1870, 14,300; in 1879 they were 33,199; in 1875, as we all know, the demand was far greater than the supply. I am afraid now that the supply is somewhat in excess of the demand. The next Table which I wish to submit to the Committee is one respecting Scotland. When we passed the Scotch Act it was thought that there was hardly room for much, progress in Scotland. The Scotch, we knew, had such a strong traditional respect for education, and had always done so much to govern themselves well, and also to govern us and the rest of the world, that we thought Scotland would require but little to be done for it. Let me point out, however, the progress which has been made in Scotland since the passing of the Act of 1872, always bearing in mind that a certain number of the parochial schools, which did not have any grant prior to 1872, have come in since. The schools inspected in 1872 were 2,057; in 1879 they were 3,003. The accommodation in 1872 was 282,000; last year it was 585,000, the percentage of increase being 107. The number on the registers in 1872 was 267,000; in 1879 it had risen to 508,000, or an increase of 90 per cent. The certificated and assistant teachers in 1872 were 2,663; in 1879 they were 5,613. The annual grant in 1872 was £103,700, while last year it was £325,700, or an increase at the rate of 214 per cent. I have also the details of the expenditure; but I will simply trouble the Committee with the totals. The expenditure in 1872 was £295,000; in 1876 it was £631,000; in 1879 it was £828,000. It must also be borne in mind—and it is fair to Scotland to state—that the fees there are much higher than they are in England; while their appreciation of education is shown by the fact that the fees have risen from 10 s. 2½ d. in 1872, to 12 s. 4½ d. in 1879, or nearly 2 s. per head.

Can the right hon. Gentleman give us any comparison between England and Scotland?

I shall be very glad to do it. The estimated population of England was 25,165,336. The population of Scotland is 3,628,065. The percentage of the population on the registers in England is 14·7, in Scotland 14. That is to say, the children go to school much earlier in England than in Scotland; but that in Scotland they go later, and remain later. The proportion of average attendance of scholars on the registers is, in England, 69·9, in Scotland 57·7. The proportion of scholars examined in Standards 4 and upwards to all scholars examined individually is, in England, 21·1, and in Scotland 29·25; while the proportion above 14 receiving grants from elementary schools in England is only 1·1 per cent, in Scotland it is 2·8 per cent, or very nearly 3. That is to say, Scotland, in that respect, has nearly three times as many children in that grade as England. The average cost per scholar in the English board schools is £2 2 s. ; in the Scotch public schools £2 3 s. 6 d. , in the English voluntary schools £1 14 s. 6 d. , and in the Scotch voluntary schools £1 18 s. The average grant earned in England is 15 s. 3½ d. , in Scotland 17 s. 1¼ d. , in the English voluntary school it is 15 s. 3¼ d. , in the Scotch voluntary school it is 16 s. 3½ d. The average income from the rates, in England, is 18 s. 9¾., in Scotland it is 13 s. 10½ d. It is quite evident, from these figures, that Scotland required an improvement in her system of education, and that the Act of 1872 was not passed a minute too soon.

Have you Tables above 10? [ Cries of "Order, order!"]

I can, perhaps, give you them, and if I can I shall be very glad to do so. When I look to the work done in Scotland, I must bear my testimony to its very remarkable character. Not later than last Saturday I inquired about an elementary school in a small town in the extreme North, where the complaint was that the inhabitants thought it was going down. I find that there were 135 children in it; that 52 boys were being taught mathematics, 51 Latin, and 21 Greek. [ Laughter. ] Yes; the appreciation of education in Scotland is always refreshing to anyone who represents the Department in this House. It is most pleasant to see how anxious the Scotch people are to give their children the very best possible education. I have now drawn the attention of the Committee to the work of the last 10 years, I have endeavoured to show what the rate of progress has been, and what also has been the financial cost of the results we have achieved. But I shall not complete my statement if I do not refer to one or two matters with respect to the Code of the present year, and to some changes which were proposed by the noble Lord which we did not find ourselves in a position to accept when we entered Office. I hope that the course that we consequently took was respectful to our Predecessors. I felt myself the importance of not disturbing the Code any more than we could possibly help. Nothing deranges a school so much as constant changes in the Code; and if it were possible to maintain a Code for a number of years intact, and without change, it would certainly add very much to the comfort of teachers and managers, and to the good order and progress of the school. The noble Lord, in his statement last year, said complaints had frequently been made that the Code was not intelligibly drawn. It had been the production of successive Vice Presidents; but whether it was clearly framed or not there were still greater difficulties in making alterations. I quite agree with the noble Lord, and I do hope if we do alter it that it will be something lasting, and that the result will be that the Code will last several years. When we came into Office in May, we found that a Code must be presented to Parliament immediately, or, at any rate, within one month. The Code laid on the Table by the noble Lord in the month of March had made two or three very important changes, and I am sure that the noble Lord felt that those changes were amply justified. First of all, it lowered the age of children in elementary schools from 18 to 14. [Lord GEORGE HAMILTON: No.] Well, it allowed one examination only after 14, and, at any rate, it permitted no examination after 15, while it also raised the specific subjects from Standard 4 to Standard 5. We found in the Office Petitions and Memorials from school boards, representing 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 of population, against those changes in the Code; and we had to consider our position in the face of the many strong representations made to us by some of the most experienced men in the Kingdom. Men who, like Mr. Samuel Rathbone, of Liverpool, the Chairman of the school board, who formerly had a place in this House, have devoted their lives to the work of education, men also like my hon. Friend from Birmingham (Mr. Collings), men also who represented large school boards, and members of the country clergy, all of whom told us that if we took away this privilege many who were now at our schools would have to leave immediately. Again, they said that if children who were staying on for these specific subjects had to be deducted, the classes then would be too small to touch the subjects at all. We thought, therefore, the most respectful course we could take would be to continue the Code as it stands for one year longer, until we have had time to consider the whole subject ourselves, so that any change adopted should be the result of our own experience and convictions. I am sure the noble Lord will not complain of that, for I am confident he would have done the same thing under the same circumstances. It is true you may quote the opinions of Inspectors against that course; but where you have 130 Inspectors you have a great variety of opinion. For instance, one Inspector was for excluding science teaching altogether, and substituting the teaching of languages, while one Report suggested that science should be dropped and Shakespeare taught. For my part, I do not know that there would be an advantage in teaching Shakespeare in place of simple scientific teaching in our schools. Again, as to the Standard, we are in this position—the factory children who pass as half-timers at the 4th Standard rarely attain a higher knowledge. If these specific subjects are retained, they will retain some knowledge of history, geography, and the literature of their country, and some idea of the laws of health and the functions of the human body. I know that these studies are described in very ambiguous terms. "Physiology" merely means the functions of the human body. "English literature" means learning 300 lines of poetry—and I cannot conceive anything better than storing the memory of a child with some of our noble English poetry—and writing a little theme. It would be, I think, a great misfortune if we dropped at once these specific subjects. The whole number of children above 14 in our elementary schools is 40,000 out of the 3,750,000 in attendance. It may be said that these are the middle classes; but I can assure the Committee I have taken pains to ascertain how far that is true, and it is disproved by the facts. My right hon. Friend the author of the Education Act (Mr. W. E. Forster) put in the age of 18 years in order to allow children, whose early education was neglected, to make up for lost time in cases of necessity. The question is—is there still a necessity? The noble Lord thinks there is not; but two or three important school boards in the country have furnished me with information to the contrary. The Birmingham School Board has 11,447 children in the schools; of these, 60 only are over the age of 14. Now, what Standard are they in? Four are in Standard 1; six in 2; 10 in 3; 14 in 4; 11 in 5; 12 in 6; and three above 6. Now, will this Committee exclude these 60 boys, ignorant as they are, neglected as they have been, from our elementary schools, simply because of the age they have reached? In the same way, there are 92 girls above this age in these schools, and only 12 of them have passed Standard 6. I found in one London school there were two girls over 16 whose education had been neglected through ill health. How could we fairly exclude those children? There are, in fact, no children of the middle classes in the elementary schools who are receiving high education at the expense of the rates, so that, as far as that is concerned, no harm can possibly be done by this question standing over. I believe no mishcief has been done at all. While in England we have barely 1 per cent above 14, in Scotland we have very nearly 3 per cent; and I think it is most desirable that these children should continue at school as long as their parents will keep them there. If a workman will deny himself in order to keep his boy at school up to 15 or 16, in order that he may get the best education possible, he is doing a meritorious act both for himself and his child, and one which is certainly beneficial to society. I have quoted the case of Manchester. There are 62 children from the elementary schools there who have passed into the Manchester Grammar School. This, however, I do promise the Committee, and in this I am sure I shall have the full accord of the noble Lord the late Vice President of the Council, who is as earnest as anybody in the cause of education, that we will do nothing which can, in any degree, diminish efficiency in the real essentials of education. That is to say, that the standard work shall be well done. If I find that any of these specific subjects are causing a falling off in the standard work I will at once cut it off. I shall require that our standard work shall be thorough. Thoroughness should be the test of our elementary education. At present, I have no indication of that falling off. On the contrary, Mr. Rathbone wrote me a letter from which I will read a few words, because I am sure the noble Lord opposite and the Committee will admit that there is no better authority on school board work in England than Mr. Rathbone. He says—

"I find that after we first introduced special subjects into our schools the average percentage of passes in the ' three R's' began to improve, and has continued steadily to do so."

I know, of course, that it was said that children merely get a smattering of science or literature; but I am afraid that I have more respect for smattering than some Members of this House. If a child merely gets a smattering of some special subject it rivets his attention, it fires his imagination, it takes hold of his intellect, and, some day, in consequence, he may become not merely a superficial student, but a proficient in that particular subject. I remember, more than 40 years ago, that I was a member of a class in which a clergyman taught natural history. That was a class of lads all under 13, and I am sure we were all smatterers. But I remember that one of the most enthusiastic members of that class was a lad who was a constant companion of my own, and who used to spend his holidays and spare time in going into the country studying entomology and groping in the pools. I can trace his history since. Smatterer as he was at 13 or 14, he is to-day one of the most distinguished naturalists in Europe; he is a secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, and he is a Fellow of the Royal Society. He wrote that wonderful book, The Naturalist on the Amazon. And there is no man living who has discovered so many new species as my friend, Mr. Bates. That is the benefit of smattering if you can only excite the children's interest in it. If they once are thus interested in poetry, na- tural history, or any other study, something has been done to make them think and work after they leave school. That is, then, one of my arguments in favour of specific subjects. There is only one other matter I should like to allude to, and that is religious teaching in the schools. What do children comprehend of religion? You teach them Divine mysteries. What do they know of them? You ask a schoolboy what he means when he repeats his Catechism, and how can he tell you? What grasp has he of those mysteries which even men of learning hesitate to speak about? Yet, while you insist upon these things being taught in schools, and believe that in them is involved a great part of the future life of the child, there are some who would refuse to allow children to "be taught the simple facts of nature, the main points of history, the mere rudiments of everything with which they would have to deal for the whole of the rest of their lives. I hesitate to say that we ought to exclude these subjects from our schools; but I will, nevertheless, repeat what I have already said, that if I find it is necessary to maintain thoroughness in the elementary subjects of reading, and writing, and arithmetic, that these specific subjects shall be removed to the higher standards. I will submit a scheme to the House by which they shall be removed before this time next year. There is one other point on which I wish to submit some figures to the Committee, and I am sure many hon. Members would like to know what is the condition of voluntary schools. They fairly continue to hold their own in numbers and in efficiency. While the earning of the children in board schools are 15 s. 3½ d. , in voluntary schools the children earn 15 s. 3½ d. , or only one farthing below the board schools; and while the average income from fees in the board schools is 9 s. 3¼ d. , in the voluntary schools it is 10 s. 10 d. The average cost of education in the board schools is £2 2 s. ¾ d. , in voluntary schools it is £1 14 s. 6 d. [Lord GEORGE HAMILTON: Hear, hear!] The noble lord cheers that; but he must not come to too rapid a conclusion about it. The voluntary schools extend throughout the rural districts, whereas the board schools have to do their work in great centres of population at much greater expense. It is one thing to maintain a school in London, with the expense of building, the cost of highly-paid schoolmasters and all the expenses of London, and quite another thing to maintain a school in a rural district. The voluntary subscriptions of the year were £754,000, which is an increase as compared with the years before, the figures in 1874 being £655,000, and in 1870 £419,000. Before I conclude I should just like to point to what has been the cost of these specific subjects to the country. The grant for specific subjects last year was £20,500. 119,000 children were examined, and 80,000 passed. In Scotland, however, with only one-seventh of the population, the grant was £10,600. So that if England had earned as much as Scotland the grant would have been over £70,000. In England, 965,000 children passed in the three subjects. In Scotland, 1,521,000, or 57 per cent more; while, as a matter of fact, there ought to have been seven times as many in England as compared with Scotland. I have heard it said that there is a danger that our elementary schools will compete with the grammar schools of the country. I heard a right rev. Prelate state that the national schools were interfering with the celebrated grammar school at Sherborne. I went back to my Office, and inquired what they could possibly be teaching at the national school which could interfere with the success of that great grammar school. I will give the Committee the result. The population of Sherborne, in 1871, was 6,129. 146 boys were on the books of the national school, three of whom were above 13, and 4 above 14. There were 126 girls, eight of whom were above 13, and four above 14. Grammar and geography were class subjects, and no specific subjects at all were taken by the boys, while the annual passes in specific subjects were simply three girls, who passed in physical geography and three in domestic economy. How that could interfere with the grammar school I cannot understand. There is, in fact, no purer elementary school in England; and if the grammar school is not flourishing, it is evidently not the fault of the national school giving too high an education. [An hon. MEMBER: Is there no British school?] In no school in Sherborne is there anything like specific teaching. The Vote I ask this year is for £2,536,077, an increase over last year of £54,900. But the expenditure of 1878–9 was £85,000 less than the Estimate, so that the increase is £140,000. There is an increase on the annual grants of £51,000, and on the Training College of £2,100, on pensions £1,000, on salaries and inspectors £4,800; while there is a diminution of £4,000 on the remaining sub-heads. With regard to Scotland, although that is not the Vote now before us, I hope the Committee will allow me to state that the total sum there is £464,220, of which £5,563 is due mainly to the increased expense of last year because the children could not make their usual attendances owing to the severity of the weather. I have to apologize for taking so much time in moving this first Vote. I now ask it with pleasure, because I am sure no man in the Committee will grudge the Vote. I feel that the Department with which I have the honour to be associated is intrusted with one of the noblest works ever undertaken by the English people; and in doing the best we can to give the very best possible education within the short limits of the school-life of an English child, I am sure we are doing the very best we can to commit the future destinies of our Empire to an enlightened and an educated people.

said, he had listened to the able and satisfactory statement of his right hon. Friend, and felt sure that everyone interested in the education of the country would congratulate himself that his right hon. Friend occupied the position he was so well qualified to fill. Of course, they could not disguise from themselves that upon the extra and specific subjects there was some difference of opinion; but he rejoiced to find that those branches had so able and cordial a defender. In order that the effect of omitting the 4th Schedule might be understood, it must be remembered that the subjects taught in the elementary schools were—first, reading, writing, and arithmetic; secondly, class subjects; and, thirdly, the special subjects. Those who objected to the 4th Schedule did so on the ground that the class subjects included elementary science, history, grammar, mathematics, and geography; and they asked what was the necessity for any so-called special subjects. But it was forgotten that the scholar could only take up two class subjects. If, therefore, special subjects were omitted, unless the number of class subjects were increased, we should be taking a very retrograde step. In. connection with the class subjects, for which system they were indebted to the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton), he desired to call the attention of the Vice President of the Council to one or two points. In the first place, it was an instruction that these subjects should be taught through reading lessons; but, in his opinion, that system was not satisfactory. He agreed that it was undesirable to alter the Code itself; but, at the same time, that would not so much apply when the alteration merely gave a little more latitude and choice to those who were conducting the schools. He would, of course, prefer that the subjects should be taught by means of reading lessons, rather than not at all; but he thought all those who took an interest in scientific subjects would agree that to teach them through reading lessons was the worst way in which they could be taught. It was much better that the instruction should be given orally, and with the aid of the black board, in the simplest way. Again, he thought a wider discretion, should be given to the schoolmasters, who ought to be allowed to choose those subjects which they felt they could teach with the greatest amount of success. The other point he desired to refer to was the proportion of children necessary to obtain the grant; and, with regard to this, he would mention that the absence of a single child had sometimes rendered it impossible for the school to obtain this, owing to the fact that the Code insisted upon the attendance of a certain proportion of children. Returning to the subjects of instruction, it was desirable, as he had before said, that the schoolmasters should teach those subjects which they were most qualified to handle. Take, for instance, the subject of botany. There could be no doubt that, in the hands of an enthusiastic botanist, no subject was more interesting to children than this; while there could be none drier in the hands of a person who did not care about it. Then he would like to see the introduction of one other subject. Agriculture was a subject taught in Irish schools, and surely a knowledge of crops and various stocks might, with great advantage, be introduced into the schools of some of our rural districts. Those who objected to the 4th Schedule did not so, in reality, much object to the subjects as to the mode of teaching them. For instance, with regard to the subject of English literature. Could it be said there was nothing in that which was suitable to young people; that history and geography were luxuries which ought not to be provided in elementary schools; or that some knowledge of domestic economy would not be useful to the children in after life? At any rate, much harm could not have been done up to the present, for out of the 3,500,000 of children in all the schools only 364 were learning Latin, and 24 were learning German. Some of the objections urged against the Schedule were of a humorous character. For instance, a noble Lord was reported to have said—

That showed the average number of passes to be between 74 and 75 per cent. But in 1877, when class subjects were introduced, the number of passes rose to 79 per cent. In 1878 elementary science was added, and the proportion of passes rose to 85 per cent; in 1879 it was 87 per cent; and at the last examination it stood at 89 per cent. These figures showed that the introduction of specific subjects had been followed by an improvement in the percentage of passes amounting to no less than 14 per cent. Again, an idea of the subject could be obtained by considering it with reference to the different classes of elementary schools—namely, the School Board schools, British schools, Church of England schools, and Roman Catholic schools. The percentage of passes in fundamental subjects in the School Board schools was 84; British schools, 82; Church of England schools, 79; and Roman Catholic schools, 78. Now, when they came to specific subjects they found the percentage for Board schools was 35; British schools, 26; Church of England schools, 19; and Roman Catholic schools, 5. These facts were very remarkable; and, although he did not say they were conclusive, they proved that the introduction of special subjects did not in any way interfere with the others, but were, on the contrary, beneficial to them. Again, that these subjects did not injuriously affect the reading, writing, and arithmetic, was shown by the fact that in 1879 the percentages of the 1st Standard, which passed in the three subjects, was 82; that of the 2nd, 87; that of the 3rd, 85; that of the 4th, 85; that of the 5th, 85; and that of the 6th, or highest, 90. Indeed, the absolute answer was that grants under this head were not given unless 75 per cent of the children passed in reading, writing, and arithmetic. In the face of that, could it really be maintained that fundamental subjects were sacrificed by the introduction of special subjects? It must also be remembered that the Code did not enjoin, but only permitted, them to be taught. His own opinion was that variety in mental food was good for children. The Code, however, did not force schoolmasters to act on that view. It simply left them free to do so if they chose. The next objection was that these subjects were unsuitable, and too difficult for children. On this point, he might refer to the last Report of the Committee of the Council on Education, drawn up by the Duke of Richmond and Gordon and the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex, which said— at the same time, and would thus tend to make the education given one-sided and narrow. The children of hon. Members—say, girls of 13 years of age—were learning reading, writing, and arithmetic, history, geography, grammar, elementary mathematics, and the rudiments of science, imperfectly and unsystematically, perhaps, but still in some form; then, very likely, a little Latin—and, no doubt, either French or German. He would say nothing about music or drawing. There were, then, nine subjects in which the children of hon. Members were instructed. What reason was there that the children of the poor should not take up nearly the same number of subject? He could see no reason at all. If the 4th Schedule were omitted, our elementary schools would only be able to teach five subjects; and though, from the foregoing list he should be disposed, in the case of these schools, to omit French, he should, on the other hand, plead strongly for domestic economy, both in the case of boys and girls, and could not help thinking that instruction in that subject would tend to make their dwellings more comfortable, homely, and healthy. By the omission of the 4th Schedule, the school, instead of taking up nine subjects, would be restricted to five, and this, he thought, would be a great loss, for which there was really no justification. It must be remembered that in the elementary schools the number of hours of study might be taken at 25 or 30 per week; and, after deducting from these the time allotted to reading, writing, arithmetic, and a few Bible lessons, there remained an ample margin for elementary instruction in special subjects. His right hon. Friend had referred to the objectionable nature of a mere smattering of knowledge; but with regard to the special subjects, he would point out that there was all the difference in the world between being well grounded in a subject and having only a smattering of it. In former years, when advocating the introduction of these subjects, he had quoted the opinions of many of Her Majesty's Inspectors; and, on the present occasion, he had referred to that of the late Government. He was of opinion that the children themselves were not bad judges of what they could learn; and, with the permission of the Committee, he would now lay before them a little piece of evidence on that point. A short time ago lie had the opportunity of visiting some of the board schools in Lambeth, and it occured to him to ask the children which of their lessons they liked best. They were learning grammar, history, geography, and elementary science, and he put it to a show of hands which they preferred. Out of 229 children in the upper Standards, 38 voted for history, 31 for reading, 11 for geography, 2 for grammar, and 147 for elementary science. He did not say that this was any reason for neglecting the other subjects. He had always said that a certain amount of history, grammar, and geography was necessary; but he thought this great preponderance of votes in favour of elementary science was a conclusive proof that the children really understood the instruction given to them. Nor did he mean to say that the time was yet ripe to make this instruction compulsory. Efficient instruction of the kind could not, of course, be given except by masters who themselves took an interest in the subjects. He could not help thinking that some of those who objected to the Schedule were in the habit of picturing to themselves anxious and weary children poring over a difficult and distasteful task. But he wished those who had that idea had been with him on the occasion to which he had referred, to see the happy and intelligent faces of the children, and the delight with which they answered the questions put to them. Everybody, he felt sure, who had any doubt as to whether these subjects were doing valuable service to the cause of education, would very much modify their opinions upon the question if they would pay a visit to some of the board schools in which the special subjects were taught. His right hon. Friend had put the whole question most ably and fully before the Committee; and, as he did not anticipate there would be much objection offered to the Vote, he need say nothing more, beyond thanking the Committee for allowing him to make those few observations in support of instruction on these special subjects, if they were omitted, for it would, he was sure, be a source of great discouragement to the cause of education throughout the country.

said, he joined in congratulating the right hon. Gentleman upon the statement he had made. It was, he felt sure, a satisfaction to the Committee to see the affairs of the Education Department in the hands of one who had given so long and close an attention to the subject, and who would, therefore, give fair attention to any representations from whatever quarter they might proceed. The right hon. Gentleman had gone over a very considerable range of matters in connection with the subject of education. A great part of that statement, as had been observed by the hon. Member who had just sat down, was matter of a non-contentious character. While all agreed in expressing satisfaction at the extension of education in the rural districts, it was felt by many that it should be applied carefully and guardedly, so as to avoid arousing the feelings of the population against these improvements, which, if once awakened, would be very difficult to calm down. Therefore, he felt sure the right hon. Gentleman would proceed with caution in introducing the improvements which he contemplated. With regard to the particular matters alluded to by the hon. Baronet who had just spoken, he thought the Vice President of the Council had somewhat understated the complexity of the subjects which would have to be dealt with in teaching science in elementary schools. The right hon. Gentleman said, for instance, in relation to animal physiology, that it meant the simplest thing in the world—that was to say, the functions of the human body. He must, however, say, with deference to the right hon. Gentleman, that, in his opinion, the functions of the human body were the simplest thing in the world; and the Vice President would, probably, remember that Dr. Johnson once described the art of medicine to be—"Putting drugs of which we knew very little into bodies of which we knew less." He certainly thought that anything like an exhaustive exposition of the functions of the human body, in language that would be understood by children of tender years, would be far beyond the powers of the ordinary teacher. They would, therefore, have to go the highest authorities in order to make it popular in the schools. But this art was a high one, and implied great knowledge on the part of the instructor. It was, however, satisfactory to hear from the right hon. Gentleman, that if he found that the specific subjects did interfere with the more fundamental and necessary portions of instruction he would not hesitate to discourage them, so that those interested in education might not see these ambitious and ornamental subjects pursued, while the less attractive subjects were set aside. That was the danger to be guarded against; and he thanked the right hon. Gentleman for the assurance he had given upon that point in the course of his speech. Many hon. Members felt that there was a conviction amongst educational enthusiasts that no price was too high to pay for educational advancement in the country. He was himself not prepared to say that we paid too high a price; but he suggested that, at present, the charge was not laid upon the proper persons. The case was analagous to that of the Poor Law. We offered, on humanitarian grounds as Christians, or on prudential grounds as Members of the State, a guarantee to the inhabitants of the country against what might be called the extreme consequences of hunger and despair. Accordingly, they were guaranteed the right to live. But, on the other hand, they were not guaranteed the right to live luxuriously. He submitted that this analogy was complete as regarded instruction in ratepayers' schools. They had the right to levy on the ratepayers Votes for providing elementary instruction; but, in so far as they departed from that elementary instruction and approached a higher grade of intellectual training, they were, to a certain extent, introducing a Communistic principle. Although the sum of £20,000 was not a large sum, the principle he had alluded to was one which he and many others felt it their duty to carefully guard against. They had always considered that when once they went beyond what was necessary in such matters, they were entering into so large a sphere that they would trench upon the ground of secondary education, and provide, at the ratepayers' expense, an education which ought to be paid for by parents. It was laid down in the Act of 1870, that it was the duty of every parent to provide instruction for his child. But, as a matter of fact, what was the position? The State provided the education, while the parent only gave a small subsidy. Speaking roughly, each child cost about 1 s. a-week, in ad- dition to the cost of school premises, which amounted to 1 s. 4 d. a-week. Now, the average school fees were 2 d. a-week; so that the ratepayers paid five-sixths, and the parents one-eighth, of the whole cost. Therefore, he contended that the obligation laid upon the parent to provide education for his child was not observed. At any rate, it was not observed by the London School Board. He had endeavoured to show, last year, that the children who most needed education were not those provided for in these schools. The gutter children were but too apt to escape the operation of this compulsory education, and it was the interest of everybody to exclude them. It was much more pleasant to call at the houses of people of a better class on the subject of the education of their children. Again, masters of schools were by no means anxious to have this class of children, who did not do credit to their instructors, and, when in school, they did not assist in getting the grants. The profitable children were those who were well prepared, and who were stimulated by the promise, in many cases, of large prizes of books, as well as other rewards, by which they were induced to work; and, having received these out of the grant, in their turn they contributed to swell the sum which the unfortunate taxpayers had to meet. However, he had found by inquiry that there was a very large increase in the number of these respectable and decent persons who now made use of the board schools, but who formerly used middle-class schools of a modest kind for the education of their children. There were many persons, also, who deplored very much that the high class education now given in the board schools had utterly taken away from the poor children the fundamental education intended for them for the benefit of persons living in houses of £40 and £50 rental. The policy of the School Board in extending their action, as far as possible, was very welcome to this class of persons who, at a General Election, swelled by their votes the number of those hon. Members who were returned to support an expensive policy of education. London was, perhaps, the strongest instance of a place where educational zeal was carried to an extent beyond discretion. Those who objected to the teaching of those higher subjects contained in the Schedule, did so because they did not believe that the teachers in primary schools were fitted to teach them. When they were taught by persons unpractically acquainted with them they were nothing but a collection of dry facts, collated from text-books and made drier still by the method of imparting them. He had looked in vain to find a favourable Report upon them from any one of the Inspectors. On the contrary, he found an unanimous chorus of disapproval, on the part of the Inspectors, of giving too scientific a tone to the education provided in the schools. He would be sorry to read all these Reports to the Committee, but would refer to one or two of them. The Inspector's Report from the Liskeard district was to the effect that the time given to specific subjects would be better expended in making the elementary knowledge of the children thorough. Again, Mr. Liddell, of the Crewe district, said "the results were by no means encouraging." In short, the Reports were in almost precisely the same language; the curriculum being described as ambitious. It seemed to him that there was a need of Scholarships, or some kind of link, between the lower schools and the instruction in the higher subjects, which should exist in order to facilitate the transmission of clever children from these lower schools to upper schools. Why, in future, something should not be provided in order to form a permanent link between the lower and higher grades of education, it was not for him to say. He was by no means extremely conservative in the matter of endowments; but he knew that great abuses existed, and that there was a great gap in the educational system of the country. He hoped something might be done by means of these endowments by which this gap might be bridged over. But he thought, if possible, this ought to be done—namely, to guard very strongly against the Communistic element. We ought not to educate the lower class in the belief that, because they happened t o be born in that grade of society, and had strong claims upon the attention of those more fortunately placed, they were entitled to call by compulsory agency upon those more fortunately situated than themselves to supply them with educational luxuries. He hoped, if progress and improvement was to be made in the education of the country, it would be done by agencies other than this Communistic principle, which could only have a demoralizing effect.

replying to the hon. Gentleman (Mr. J. R. Yorke), said, that the assurance given by the hon. Member was very encouraging, because it led to the impression that on the part of a large section of the Opposition there would be a willingness to deal with educational trust funds all over the country in such a way that they would be released for the noble purpose for which they were intended, and when this stream came to flow in its proper channels, the question of cost, now so often and so properly raised, would meet with its solution. He next thanked the Vice President for the assurance given that compulsion would no longer be a thing of discretion; but that it would be absolutely binding on school boards and school attendance committees to see, not that all children might, but that every child must, attend with regularity an efficient school. That question of attendance lay at the bottom of all their difficulty in securing results, and of half their difficulty in keeping down expense; and he congratulated the House that both Parties in the State agreed on universal compulsion. In truth, it had not been so difficult in London to secure attendance as it was expected. The fact was, the people were willing, but they were unable. They ought to be thanked for so readily obeying the notices, and especially so as the payment even of the low fees involved great sacrifice. The School Board for London had been alluded to; and he might say that in 772 departments, with accommodation for 222,000 children, the children on the rolls were 231,800, and the average attendance was, during the past six months, 187,000, or 80 per cent upon the average on the rolls. The hon. Gentleman quoted the figures from the following table, showing the improvement in the attendance at board schools since 1873:—

The working of the bye-laws entailed a cost of nearly £30,000 a-year to the ratepayers, and by this expenditure the attendance of both voluntary and board schools was maintained, so that when once a public opinion was created in favour of universal attendance rendering unnecessary that expenditure, an enormous saving to the ratepayers would result. The hon. Gentleman then referred to the difficult position in which the Vice President was placed in having to confront the Richmond Code of March, supported by the reactionary Report of April, and followed by his own Code of June. The proposed alteration in the Code had startled the public, and though that Code was simply ignored for the time, he hoped it might be understood, by the re-assuring speech of his right hon. Friend, that the Government were not going to be a party to a policy of restriction of the original scope and intention of the Act. The noble Lord the late Vice President had challenged the opinion of the country in a Resolution for which no day had been yet fixed; but he could answer for it that when that Motion was brought forward, the present Parliament would not be slow to reply. The noble Lord had proposed, first, a limitation of age, and, second, a limitation of scope; and severe rebukes had been administered to the School Board for London, as he understood it, for "cherishing ambitious projects." Now, the only project he could recall was one made years ago in favour of "centre teaching," by which pupil teachers in large towns might have the advantage of the best instruction by the most skilled teachers, not of their own, but of any school. The Department had steadily resisted that proposal; but he was glad to see that the Lords of the Privy Council had now given to the School Board for London the liberty they had so long desired, and the value of which had already been proved by experiments tried on a large scale in the Metropolis. The noble Lord had further declared that '' some limit should be put upon the expenditure of certain Boards." As London had been singled out by the hon. Member for East Gloucestershire (Mr. J. E. Yorke), he might point to a few causes of exceptional expenditure. The author of the Elementary Education Act estimated the deficiency of school places in 1870 as about 150,000. There were then only 262,259, and these, of course, belonged to the denominational schools. In 1880 the de-nominal school places numbered 271,314, and the school board places 223,127. That gave a clear gain of 232,182 in nine years, an increase of 88 per cent. This was the main answer to the charge that the cost was "largely in excess of the sum contemplated in 1870;" but when it was recollected that it required 10 schools a-year of 1,000 children each to meet the growth of population alone, it would be seen how unreasonable it was to hold the right hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) to his estimate of a maximum rate of about 3d. in the pound. It was generally admitted that London possessed a most difficult population to deal with; and the special cost arose from (1) the gross ignorance of the lowest children, (2) the irregularity of their attendance, (3) the impossibility of securing more than minimum fees, and (4) the absence of grant-earning power in their schools. It was most unfair to compare the cost of board schools with that of voluntary schools. From the first the voluntary schools had and have held the "select" children socially, while the board schools have had to gather in the neglected and degraded. These selected children paid fees from 4 d. to 9 d. , while the average fee in board schools was 2 d. ; and, in addition to that, the board school had a dead weight upon its grants, and the further cost of the supply of books. Again, the salaries of teachers were much higher. To secure the teaching power needed for that lower class of children a higher rate of payment was required, and he, for one, rejoiced that at length the value of such skill was more clearly admitted. The action of the school boards had helped to raise the teachers to a position as much superior to former times as he believed it was inferior to times not far distant. The Report of the Department asked the question, What was elementary education?—wishing to show that it included little more than the basis of instruction laid in reading, writing, and arithmetic, absurdly called the "three R's." Now, these had been spoken of as the mere tools of education, and, except reading, so they were; but the use of these, which was intelligence, was hardly acquired by more than 30 per cent of the children. Full 70 per cent left school with the tools, and but little skill in the use of them. The hon. Gentleman quoted the figures of the following table, showing the results of the Government examinations:—

What was essential was skill in the use of the tools and love for the work. Now, the Report was inconsistent, for, while announcing a limitation of the scope of instruction, it said—

"In the short school-life of our children they cannot, at the best, do more than gain a superficial acquaintance with a few subjects of study. But a habit of observation and of careful connected reading, with a love of acquiring knowledge, may well be begun in school, and, if begun, will often be continued when the children leave it."

It was the cultivation of that very habit for which they now pleaded, and without it no child would retain its interest in learning. He desired to put on record also a quotation from a speech delivered by the noble Lord last year. His words were these—

"He pleaded for ample opportunities being given to children who, either by industry or their capacity, or their aspirations, desired to advance."

Why, then, the sudden surprises of the Code? Why, then, was it found "expedient to restrain" the great and advancing work of popular education? Why deny the opportunity for extending the school course to the few who could take advantage of it? And why limit the specific subjects, two only of which could be taken by the cleverest children? He begged to assure the noble Lord that in some of the board schools there was no such thing as a 5th or 6th Standard; and it was a fact that 60 per cent of those who took specific subjects were in the 4th Standard. The whole proposal was disastrous—a grievous loss. He gave the following figures, based upon the Board Inspectors' Reports for the three months—March, April, and May last. They apply to 118 boys' and girls' departments, and one mixed department:—

He believed the school boards could say that they had now both sufficient and efficient schools—that the children were of a proper class; that attendance was increasingly regular and punctual; that the teaching was thorough and not too costly; and that the subjects were not beyond the original scope and intention of the Act. They set their faces against cramming, their object being to teach "to think," and to cultivate intelligence. They desired that children should learn their duty to God, to regard the right of others, to know something of the countries they lived in, and of the world about them, and to have some instruction in the laws of nature, and in the teachings of history. He was a Member of that House when the Act was passed, and, as he believed it was being faithfully and efficiently worked, his counsel to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Education Department was not to lower the Standard, but to let the work have free course, and to perfect, as far as might be, their too long delayed scheme of complete national education.

said, that he did not desire to see this debate drift into a mere defence of the London School Board, for, whatever might be the extravagance of the London School Board, they were responsible only to those who elected them. It was in the power of any constituency, if it considered its Representatives were going beyond their powers, to turn them out at the next Election. He should be sorry to see what had occurred in some Scotch constituencies occur in the case of the London School Board—namely, that they should lose favour through being extravagant, and that that extravagance should lead to a re-action, for that was sure to be detrimental to the interests of education. He thought that every friend of education ought to bear in mind the possibility of that re-action, and therefore to act with prudence. But, so far as the matter of right went, he held that there was a proper means of control to check any extravagance on the part of the London School Board if it existed. In his opinion, the Educational Department was responsible for the efficiency of the schools, but not for their economy. He hoped that the Education Department, which was responsible for the efficiency of the education of the country, would see that it was thoroughly carried out. He wished to speak upon this subject somewhat more technically than the previous speaker, for he thought that when the House of Commons was in Select Committee upon a subject like the Education Estimates, it was composed generally of hon. Members who were interested in the work and familiar with the details, and to whom a technical argument was comprehensible. He wished to join the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President in recognizing the important step taken by the late Government in restricting the number of pupil teachers. He should be glad to see some alteration in the class of subjects by which science teaching, such as the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock) desired, should be instituted. But he would wish to point out that, while it might be very desirable periodically to remodel the Code, yet he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President in thinking that they must avoid tinkering it from year to year, because that would obstruct the teachers and interfere with the continuity of their work. Specific subjects had been very recently introduced, and the experiment ought to be allowed time and freedom to work. He thought it was not desirable absolutely to prescribe any one subject. Domestic economy might be made a very valuable means of education if intelligently taught, and taught practically. But they must recognize the fact that domestic economy was not generally taught in a satisfactory or intelligent manner; it was taught a great deal too much out of books, and a great deal too little by practice. If taught in a practical and intelligent manner, he believed that domestic economy might be made a very valuable element of education. It should be taught quite as an optional subject. To say that all girls should be taught it before they could be taught any other subject would be to force many school mistresses to teach it in a most perfunctory way. He would urge upon the Department to consider whether they could not give a freedom to the girls' schools in the matter, and, while keeping the subject, in the Schedule, to leave its teaching optional. With regard to the substitution of the 5th Standard for the 4th Standard as the age for the commencement of the study of specific subjects, he should like to say a few words. It was true that children in the 4th Standard were not so ripe for being taught those specific subjects very thoroughly; but it was necessary to begin in the 4th Standard, and lead up to the higher teaching. There were very few schools in which there would be a sufficient number of pupils in the 5th and 6th Standards to be taught in a class by themselves, and the consequence would be that, except in these schools, the master would be unable to teach the specific subjects, because he could not conveniently break up his class. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President would bear these things in mind, for, unless these matters were considered in detail, a satisfactory arrangement could not be made. He did not agree with the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London as to the desirability of abolishing the percentage in the upper Standards before paying for specific subjects. A very great deterioration in education would take place if that were abolished. He thought, however, that the present percentage—20—pressed rather hardly upon new schools. Those schools took in children who were the sweepings of the streets, and who had been rejected from all the other schools; and if this Article of the Code could be made more liberal in that respect, it would be a great advantage to those schools. He thought they might, for the first three years of the existence of new schools, allow the Standard to be somewhat lower, making it 10, 15, and 20 per cent; but, to avoid false classification, he would pay for children who passed, and not for mere presentation, in the upper Standards. With respect to the new modification of the Code in the matter of class subjects, he thought that the Department had rushed from one extreme to another. Formerly, there were only four subjects; but now, in deference, perhaps, to the yearly Motion of the hon. Baronet, the Member for the University of London, they had a great mass of subjects placed under the head of class subjects which formerly belonged to that of specific subjects. He held, very strongly, that while it was very desirable that some teaching in elementary science should be given, yet he did not think that it was desirable to have a long string of special subjects followed by an et cetera at the end. He very much objected to the change made by the late Government in turning so many special subjects into class subjects. They had been told that children in the 4th Standard were not to be taught the specific subjects because they were too young; yet now they found many of the specific subjects taken from that position and placed in the list of class subjects, in which they would be taught to children in the 2nd Standard. There was another point to which he must also raise an objection. They were told that those subjects were to be taught by means of reading lessons. If the Department meant by that that they should be taught by continuous reading lessons, instead of from, little cram books, that was a step in the right direction; but it would be well to go still further, and not to require that they should be taught in reading lessons at all. Many of these subjects were much better taught orally by means of apparatus, and without the intervention of any book. With regard to the teaching of these class subjects, they were told that the system by which they were to be taught must be suitable, and drawn upon intelligent lines, and satisfactory to the Inspector. He thought it was important that they should protest against the system of centralization. The independent schools should be protected from centralization. The only way in which the Inspector was now called upon to control the school was by signing the time-table, which was simply to show its legality. Frequently the Inspector had many friendly consultations with the school teachers; but the Inspector ought not to have any right to interfere with the arrangements of the teacher. He did not think than any such right was implied by the signing of the time-table. But by this new regulation they were introducing a Government Inspector as a school organizer, and he hoped that the Department would pause before they made a change so important as that. He had noticed, lately, that it seemed to be understood that the Code limited independence and liberty in school teaching. He did not think that the Code did anything of the kind. In elementary schools the schoolmaster was free to teach anything ho pleased, so long as it was elementary, and so long as it respected the Conscience Clause. He trusted that the change to which he had alluded—which he thought at present had escaped notice, but which would have a most mischievous tendency in the management of schools—would be taken into consideration by the Department. He did not wish to attack the Inspectors. On the contrary, he thought them a very meritorious body of men, and very valuable servants of the State; but he did say this—that if the proposed change were adopted, and the Inspector was to be made supreme, there would be great fear of the education being influenced by individual crotchets. With respect to the girls' schools, he held that it was important that needlework should be well taught. But he did say that one great difficulty in getting needlework well done at present in the schools was the insufficient tuition of the teachers in needlework. He was very glad to see, recently, in Canon Tinling's Report on the Training Colleges, that attention was guardedly drawn to the fact that the art of teaching needlework was not well taught there. No doubt, very remarkable specimens of needlework were to be seen in the Training Colleges; but they did not want the students to injure their eyesight by making those elaborate specimens, but only that they should be taught the method of teaching needlework to children. This point led him to the question of the Training Colleges. He was aware that nothing could be done with regard to those institutions this year; but he would wish to raise the question of the Training Colleges, in the hope that the Department would be able to deal with it some time next year. Should they not deal with it before that time, he should certainly raise the question by Motion in that House. In the first place, anyone who looked at the figures would see the enormous proportion of the cost of the Training Colleges defrayed by the nation. The taxpayers bore three-fourths of the entire expense, the students one-seventh, or 14 per cent, and the remainder was paid by voluntary contributions. The Training Colleges were voluntary in their management, but were public in the manner in which they were maintained, and only a small proportion of their cost was defrayed by the religious denomination to which they belonged. Almost all the supply of teachers in the elementary schools came from the Training Colleges. Many teachers educated themselves, but the great mass of efficient teachers came from the Training Colleges. He held that it was very important that those Training Colleges should be managed so as to give fair play to the pupil teachers who came to them from the board schools. He should like to make a few observations with reference to the system of denominational teaching carried on in the Training Colleges. There were three points in connection with the Training Colleges to which he would call the attention of the Government. The first was, that the Training Colleges were maintained in order to provide teachers for all the schools in the country; and, that that being so, the admission to- the Training Colleges should be in order of merit, so that the pupil teachers who passed the examinations best might enter there. At present, the Training Colleges were at liberty to pass over anyone they pleased, and it did not seem to him that that was a satisfactory system. The second point was with reference to the rights of conscience. They had in their Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, in the grammar schools, and in the elementary schools of the country, asserted the rights of conscience, so that if a Nonconformist did not desire to attend the religious instruction given he should be at liberty to withdraw from it. That was not the case in the Training Colleges. He knew that he should be told that those Colleges were domestic institutions; but they were not a bit more domestic than the Colleges at Oxford and Cambridge. They were maintained, as to three-fourths of their expenditure, by public money; and he thought they had a right to ask that they should be as free from sectarian teaching as the Universities, which were in no way supported by public grants. The Training Colleges at present imposed a special theological examination in their own special creeds, and yet pupil teachers from board schools, who had to pass that examination, were not permitted by law to receive instruction from the school boards in any creed or formulary of the kind. He thought it would only be fair that the right of conscience of the pupil teachers should be respected, and that a Conscience Clause should be provided, which would enable them to withdraw from the religious teaching of the Colleges. He knew of one case in which a teacher had been treated in a very harsh manner in being expelled from a Training College, and he thought that a right of appeal in such cases ought to be given to the Education Department. It had been stated by some hon. Members that schools in London had been somewhat over built; and, in connection with that subject, he would refer to a Return which he held in his hand. That Return related to the amount of school accommodation in various towns having over 100,000 inhabitants, including London, and he thought the effect of it very important. It would be found from the Return that the rural districts were better off than the towns. The 15 great towns mentioned in the Return had a population of 7,150,000 persons. The right hon. Gentleman had said that in the whole of England the number on the roll was in the proportion of 14·7 per cent of the population. If they had that proportion of children on the roll in London, then they would have 532,000 children. Yet the Return showed that they had actually only 429,000 children on the roll. Therefore, in London, to be on a level with other parts of the country and the rural districts, they had to bring 102,000 extra children on to the roll of their schools. If the proportion of school accommodation provided in 15 large towns were compared with the proportion provided for the 18,000,000 throughout the country generally, it would be seen that the towns had a much less, proportion of school accommodation than the country. He thought there were two great factors in securing a good attendance of children at school. The first was plenty of school accommodation, and the second was thoroughly good teaching. He did not wish to disparage the compulsory system; but as the education of the country improved, he hoped to see the necessity for compulsion pass away. The right hon. Gentleman the Vice President had congratulated the Committee upon the improvement in the attendance. In London they had worked up the percentage to 80 per cent, while that of the country at large was much less. But when they compared the state of education in London with that of other places—Paris, the Eastern States of America, and Holland—they would see that they were very far behind those countries. In Prance and Holland there was no compulsion, and in America compulsion was not effectively enforced; yet in Boston the attendance in the elementary schools was over 90 per cent, while as yet London had only been able to touch 80 per cent. The lesson to be drawn from that was that they had still a long distance to pull up in order to overcome the ignorance and neglect of centuries. He wished to point out to the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President the danger that there was in calculating what a school would hold on the average attendance throughout the year. He thought that the time had now come when the Department should consider whether the accommodation in the senior department for boys and girls should not be based upon a minimum of nine square feet, instead of eight, as was the rule at present. If that were done, he thought it would be found that a great many of the nominal vacancies which at present existed in schools would disappear. He hoped that the attention of the Government would be directed to the points he had mentioned.

said, that he most cordially concurred in the praise that had been bestowed on the very able statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council. He fully shared, also, in the satisfaction that had been expressed at the successful development of education throughout the country. He thoroughly agreed with those who thought that education ought to be stimulated and promoted by every means in their power. But in order to carry out that object, they must carry with them the feelings of the people of this country; and, in order to do so, they must keep the cost of education within reasonable bounds, and the education itself within the purposes for which it was originally intended. By the Elementary Education Act of 1870, it was intended that education should be provided for those who were unable to provide it for themselves; and it was to be an education of a strictly primary character. They were not to call upon the taxpayers of the country to contribute anything beyond what was absolutely necessary for the education of the children; and it was left to voluntary efforts, to payments by the parents, and to educational endowments, to provide a higher class of instruction. So far as the education in the elementary schools went, he cordially rejoiced at what had been done, whether done by voluntary subscription, by State aid, or from endowments. But when they went beyond education of a strictly primary character, the question arose whether there was an obligation upon the ratepayers to provide anything more than was strictly necessary for elementary education, such as would enable a child to provide for itself in its future course of life. He understood that the Code did something more than that, and that it provided for the teaching of subjects which were unnecessary for that object. Great inducements were offered to the teacher to teach those subjects, for he would naturally consider that he would gain credit for himself by passing his pupils through as many subjects as possible. Thus the natural inclination of the teacher would be to devote his time and attention to the children able to pass in the extra subjects, thus neglecting those to whom it was his primary duty to impart elementary education. It appeared to him that great caution should be observed with respect to this matter, and that teachers should not be allowed to teach so much as they could at present. He thought that they were going too far with regard to the specific subjects, and that they ought not to enter into the ordinary instruction of schools. He did not say that those subjects should not be taught to children; but he thought that that instruction should be given in a different school, and there were the means of providing that instruction in the educational endowments of the country. He could not help thinking that they might bring the educational endowments of the country to those schools, so that children from them might obtain the benefit of the endowments. By that means ratepayers would be relieved from the liability of paying for the instruction of children in elementary schools in higher subjects; while, at the same time, those children competent to receive it would get such instruction. Children of extraordinary capacity would always be found competent to receive higher instruction; but the question was whether they ought to receive that education in those higher subjects at the general expense of the taxpayer. It seemed to him that the proper means of giving that instruction was to be found in the endowed schools. Without any objection, therefore, to the children receiving higher education, he ventured to protest against the burden of it being thrown upon the ratepayers. He did not object to instruction in the subjects being given to children capable of receiving it; but he thought that the cost of such instruction ought to come from a different source.

said, that he fully agreed that the educational endowments of the country ought to be made to serve the purposes of higher education; but, at the same time, he believed that the teaching of the subjects referred to was no hardship upon the ratepayers. Nine years experience as a chairman of a school board had not shown him that the ratepayers were, in any way, opposed to education in those subjects. If the Committee would bear with him, he would mention what had been his experience with respect to those matters in the schools belonging to the board of which he was chairman. He did not think that any injury had been done either to primary education or to the interests of the ratepayers by the teaching of those specific subjects. They had had to build school accommodation for 700 children, and he was glad to say that they had as many as 800 children in the schools out of a population of 35,000 persons. In the case of children seven years old and upwards, the very best evidence they could have with regard to those subjects was furnished by an instance that had come under his notice. The schoolmistress stated that she had considerable difficulty in keeping the children in order, and said that she must be allowed to teach them something that would amuse them, instead of merely teaching them reading, writing, and arithmetic. She did so, and all difficulty as to keeping the children in order disappeared. They were delighted with their lessons, and not only were they glad to learn the object lessons, but were perfectly satisfied afterwards to be taught reading, writing, and arithmetic. They could deal with older children in the same way. So far, therefore, from finding that the teaching of these specific subjects was any hindrance to primary education, his experience was that the teaching of the attractive subjects increased, rather than diminished, the power of the child to learn the drier ones. He had even had the children instructed in domestic economy. He could assure the Committee that, so far as the City of "Worcester was concerned, the teaching of specific subjects had been found the greatest aid to instruction, and had caused the children to throw themselves more eagerly into primary education. The hon. Member for East Gloucestershire (Mr. J. R. Yorke) had said that as the board schools were extended some other schools ceased to exist. He was aware of that fact, and he rejoiced at it. Those private adventure schools, in which those who knew nothing imparted the same amount of education to others, were the last relics of barbarism in education. Then it was said against the board schools that they were so expensive, and such a burden to the ratepayers. He would tell the Committee what had been the cost of education in the City of Worcester. In no year had the rate exceeded 2 d. in the pound, although they had all the machinery of compulsion, and they paid their schoolmaster £150 a-year and their schoolmistress £120 a-year. He did not think that that was an extravagant sum for the ratepayers to pay. A gentleman whom he knew—an Inspector of schools in New York—had told him that he had a great many difficulties to encounter, but he had never had any difficulty with regard to money. He said that the people in the United States were ready to pay anything for their fellow-countrymen; had he stated that he wanted a very large sum for education, it would have been given him. It was that feeling in the American people that made the United States one of the most highly educated countries in the world. Until they ceased in this country to dispute about contributing towards the education of their fellow-countrymen, they would never become what they ought to be—an educated people. The hon. Member for East Gloucestershire had said that it was Communism to educate the people of the poorer classes. But if they looked to the source of the fund from which the board schools were maintained, they would find that the labouring classes paid a very substantial share. If they once came to the question of endowment it would be a very awkward matter for the higher classes of this country, who had systematically appropriated the educational endowments of the country. If he understood Communism aright—although he had never had the good fortune to know a Communist—he should say the best remedy for it was to educate the people. In conclusion, he must express his opinion, from his experience as a chairman of a school board, that public education did not require lowering in any way, but, if possible, being raised to a still higher standard. He trusted that he should never hear his right hon. Friend the Vice President propose that these specific subjects should be taken away from the education of the country.

An hon. MEMBER said, one remark had just been made to which he should like to allude. The hon. Gentleman had referred, in terms of condemnation, to the private schools of the country, and he hoped the attention of the Department would be turned to the existence of those schools. He was not alluding to those which professed to give secondary education, but those which undertook the work of elementary education. These had been christened by the Department, in 1870, "private adventure schools;" and, as an Inspector, it had been his duty to visit a large number of these, and he had had very considerable experience of them. He was well aware that where the school boards and the magistrates worked together, these private adventure schools had been practically extinguished; but there were many other districts in which the magistrates did not co-operate with the authorities, and there these schools continued and increased, with the result of withdrawing children from the inspection and control of the school board officials. This matter was strictly under the control of the Education Department; because, by the Factory Acts, no child was allowed to labour half-time until it had obtained a certificate of attendance, and the Inspectors had to furnish a list of schools which were certified as proper places for the children to attend. He hoped the Department would see that the Inspectors in this respect performed their duties very carefully, and would see that schools were not certified unless they really did give a proper education. That might seem to be a matter of detail; but anyone who had had anything to do with carrying out the Education Act would agree with him that, wherever these schools existed, they did throw a very considerable difficulty in the way of education.

said, nobody could have heard the statement of the right hon. Gentleman without a deep feeling of gratification. Whatever might have been the opinion of some hon. Gentlemen when the Education Act of 1870 was passed, there could be but one opinion now as to its effects, and that was that it had been a great blessing to the country. Our streets alone was sufficient evidence. Ten years ago they were full of miserable, ragged children, in a frightfully degraded and demoralized state. But now the streets were swept clean of these unfortunate creatures; they were receiving moral training in our public schools. No one could witness even that result without feeling that the Act was a blessing to the country, and that the right hon. Gentleman who introduced and passed that measure (Mr. W. E. Forster) deserved the lasting gratitude of his countrymen. They had heard a good deal about the increase in the rates, and the great amount that was being paid for the education of the poor; and it had been said that they had no right to interfere, and that the State ought not to compel the poor man to educate his children against his will. He denied that proposition. No man, poor or rich, had a right to bring up his child under circumstances which would consign that child to a life of misery, that would almost certainly cause him to be either a pauper or a criminal. To allow such a state of things was simply to call upon the State to support pauperism and crime; and, therefore, merely on the ground of policy, if upon no higher ground, he thought it was the duty of the Government to step in and free the child from a miserable future, and the State from the burden which would otherwise be imposed upon it. He desired to call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to one or two points to which his attention had been directed by the West Riding of Yorkshire Elementary Teachers' Association. By Article 9, a school might be deprived of a considerable part of the grant when a certain percentage of children were not examined in Subject 4, although that was a matter over which the teacher had no control. That Article severely affected many country schools, especially poor ones; because if it were put in force, there was no encouragement to the teacher to do the best for his pupils, and the discouragement was exceedingly injurious. He would, therefore, ask the right hon. Gentleman to see whether, when re-constructing the Code, he could not amend this section. All the spirit of the speeches in that House had been to encourage a good and sound education, and an improved moral and intellectual culture, among the humbler classes. Anything which tended to deter, or discourage, that class of education, was a serious injury to the class for whom the Act was specially intended. He had read also, with considerable surprise, the 2nd Article in Chapter 19, which restricted the teaching of subjects, like geography and history, to reading lessons upon a scheme approved by the Inspector. He held that the scheme of education should be uniform throughout the country, and that the Education Department should prescribe the scheme, not directing the manner in which it should be carried out, and that it should not be left to the Inspector. If, on the other hand, any special branch of education was to be submitted to the approval of the local Inspector, they localized, diversified, and deteriorated education. There would be as many systems of teaching as there were Inspectors; and, as a consequence, they might have the same subject taught in six or seven ways which were not only different in themselves, but of which not one, perhaps, was the right one. He, therefore, submitted that the system of instruction should be laid down by the Education Department, so that one standard might always be kept, and that the only duty of the Inspector should be to see that this was faithfully carried out. He ob- jected, also, to teaching history and geography by means of reading lessons. He was old enough to remember when those subjects were taught only in that way, or committed to memory; and also when oral instruction in them was first introduced. He should never forget the relief it was to him, and the immense benefit he derived from the change. How could they teach a child history by reading out of a class book, or geography by running over a long list of names from memory? The thing was simply impossible. The child was disgusted in the first place, and learnt nothing but to repeat a number of facts, or names, by rote, without understanding the meaning of what he said. To a poor child such a system would be mere irksome, profitless toil. All the information he got would go in at one ear and out at the other. They must remember, also, that these children came from the poorer classes, whose parents were not competent to help them, or to give them instruction, and whose home life was of very little assistance to them in their work. It was an insult to common sense to suppose that such children as those could be taught by mere reading lessons. To children of this class especially the teaching ought to be given in such a way as to make school as agreeable a place as possible—a place which it was partly a pleasure, as well as an advantage to attend. He had himself witnessed the advantages of oral instruction; for in some of the voluntary schools he had heard boys in rags tell upon a blank map every country in Europe, every mountain and river, the form of government, and so on. That was done by oral instruction, which excited the imagination and interested the young mind. In the map the child saw a picture which interested him, and the instruction from it impressed his understanding, and he was able to carry it away with him. His hon. Friend on his right (Sir Charles Reed) must remember the misery they both went through when learning geography and history by rote, and how little they knew until they became really big boys, and learnt the matter in a different way. This teaching by reading was a great mistake. It was thwarting the objects of elementary education. If their object was to instruct and improve the children, they certainly should not instruct them in the way that this Article proposed. With regard to the question of cost, he thought they were bound to stand out and help the poor parents; and, above all, the helpless child, to obtain all the education he could, and so to fit him for the tasks that would fall upon him in his after life. For his part, he very much objected to confining the education to the "three R's." He would like to see an effort made to lift the mind of the child as high as possible; and even if they could not give him a higher education, they could at least lay the groundwork of that mental training which might be developed when he left school, and which would make him an intelligent workman and a worthy member of society.

said, he hoped he might join in the unanimous expression of opinion that they had heard that night, and bear his testimony to the singularly able and impartial manner in which the Estimates had been moved. It was not merely that the Vice President had handled a number of complicated figures with singular ease and intelligence; but he had also exhibited what, to his mind, was even more important—an impartiality which augured well for the remainder of his tenure of Office. The right hon. Gentleman had dealt, at some length, with the present system of education. There were, no doubt, in that House many Gentlemen who were always anxious to save the taxpayers when they could do so. There was one item in connection with the expenditure to which he could not help referring. There was in existence at present a very elaborate system of audit; and, no doubt, where the enormous sum of £3,000,000 was annually spent it was necessary that the accounts should be thoroughly audited. At the same time, the Audit Department might go a little too far; and he did, for his part, think that they went too far. Some few years back the Audit Department obtained possession of several rooms in the Education Office—space which was very much needed by the Department for its own work—and, having established itself there, the Audit Office had employed its time in examining very fully the accounts of the 23,000 schools in the country, and of the payments made under the Code. That audit was undertaken in the most microscopic manner. The Audit Department took the schedule of a school, and they saw that 2 s. was paid to Ann Jones or Tom Brown for having passed such and such a Standard. They then turned to the schedules for the 12 months before, to see in each preceding year that the age was correctly stated; and if, in any one case, a mistake was made, they insisted upon a letter being sent asking for the money to be repaid. An immense deal of annoyance was thus caused to managers of elementary schools, because they had to refund—in voluntary schools, at any rate—these sums out of their own pockets. That was not so important, however, as the cost to the taxpayer. When he was at the Education Office he had an Estimate made of the result of the operations of the Audit Department for the year; and it was calculated that this system cost the country £2,400 for the year 1878–9, and that it saved £300—that for every £8 the Department spent in this ridiculous system they saved the country £ 1. He had not risen, however, to speak on this question of audit. His object was to call attention to the alterations which had been made in the Code now lying on the Table of the House. The Vice President had very properly said that these alterations, small in themselves, yet indicated a certain alteration in policy, and that he, therefore, felt it only right that he should have some further time to consider them before giving them his endorsement or approval. He would like to state what the origin of those alterations was. When he was first appointed Vice President, in moving these Education Estimates, his attention was directed to the cost of education by no less a person than the present Prime Minister, who pressed strongly upon him that a considerable portion of the education paid for out of the rates had become secondary education, and that it was not fair, under a system of so-called elementary education, that this secondary education should be given. Those remarks were also endorsed by the present Chief Secretary for Ireland, who thought that the Education Estimates had reached their proper maximum. He undertook to look carefully into the matter, and for the next 18 months he gave his attention continuously to that subject. During that time he was in constant personal communication with a considerable number of the senior Inspectors, and he took every opportunity that came within his power of informing himself as to the practical effect of the present system. The alterations which he had now made in the Code were the practical outcome of these investigations; and in these alterations he was supported by the almost unanimous opinion of the Inspectors, as well as of the Education Department. Now, in order to thoroughly understand what those alterations were, he must first enumerate them in detail. In the first place, there was no definition given of what instruction in an elementary school was to be, except that the fee paid with the child must not exceed 9 d. per week. Certain subjects were compulsory—namely, reading, writing, and arithmetic. In addition to those there were three class subjects—history, geography, and grammar—which might be taught to a class; the Inspector estimated the results by examining that class. The children who reached the 4th Standard were entitled to take up specific subjects, and those specific subjects really formed part of a secondary system of education. Now, the alterations which he made in the Code were, first, that they accepted the arguments of the hon. Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock), and they largely extended the discretion of the teachers as to class subjects until, practically, under his Code, anything could be taught, provided the Inspector and the teacher came to some understanding as to the method of instruction. They then altered the Standard under which children could take up specific subjects from the 4th to the 5th, and they further insisted that no fee in excess of 9 d. should be paid to any great extent in any elementary school. Further, they insisted that no child over the age of 15 should remain at an elementary school. Those alterations might seem small; but they were a deliberate part of their policy, and he was sure the Committee would allow him to state what that policy was. The first fact that came very prominently under his notice was the enormous disparity in the cost of education as administered by different school boards. For himself, personally, he confessed it did not weigh with him very much to say that elementary education cost very much. He believed that it was absolutely essential the children of this country should be properly educated, and if that could only be done at a very great cost, so much the worse for the taxpayers. But, on the other hand, a certain discretion must be given to the Education Department to describe the condition under which that education should be carried on; and if they believed there were defects in the system from want of regulation, or that, from want of regulation, extravagance was engendered, then it was their duty to restrain it. But, if they believed that the expenditure so incurred was positively harmful to the child, and that there was a tendency under the system of payment by results on which the efficiency of a school was mainly decided, to use the child simply as an instrument for adding to the income of the school, then it was their bounden duty to interfere. Some very remarkable figures were contained in the Report of the Education Department showing the cost of education in the largest school boards in the country. He was very glad, indeed, to see back again in that House the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ives (Sir Charles Reed), who had discharged for several years the very onerous duties of Chairman of the London School Board; and he begged that hon. Gentleman to understand that any references he might make to the labours of that Board were not prompted by any desire to attack that body. The work, indeed, of the London School Board was almost startling in its magnitude. They had under them a number of schools equal to the total number of schools in Scotland, and they had difficulties to encounter which made a comparison between their expenditure and that of other school boards unfair to some extent. He might say, also, that he had taken extreme cases in order to illustrate his argument. It would be found that the cost per scholar for average attendance, which included the cost of providing the necessary accommodation and administration, in the schools of the London School Board was £2 15 s. 2 d. , while in Sheffield it was only £1 16 s. , and in Hull £1 8 s. 6 d. Yet the average grant earned by children in these towns was—Hull, 16, s. 3 d. ; Sheffield, 17 s. 1 d. ; London, 15 s. 11½ d. That, however, was not all. When they came to the cost to the ratepayer the disparity was still more enormous, for in Hull each child educated cost the ratepayer 4 s. 4 d. ; in Sheffield, 8 s. 8 d. ; while in London the cost was £1 11 s. What was the cause of that great disparity? A little more investigation made it quite clear. The fees paid by children in London schools were lower than those paid in schools in any other part of the country, except Birmingham; while the salaries paid to the teachers were enormously higher. The first proposition which he ventured, with some confidence, to lay down, was that low fees and high salaries were absolutely incompatible. What did low fees mean? That the children who attended these schools were of the very poorest class, and, consequently, were unable to pay high fees. But the poorer the children, as a rule, the sooner they went to work, because their parents, being necessitous, found it necessary to avail themselves, at the earliest possible opportunity, of the advantages of their children's labour. Of all the Reports he had ever read on this subject—and he read a great many—incomparably the best was that entitled " The Schools Inquiry Commission," which was appointed, in 1868, to inquire into secondary schools of all grades. The names of the Commissioners spoke for themselves. The Chairman was the late Lord Taunton, while the other Members were the present Lord Derby, the late Lord Lyttelton, Sir Stafford Northcote, the late Dr. Hook, the present Bishop of Exeter, the present Bishop of Rochester, Sir Thomas Acton, Mr. Edward Baines, and the present Chief Secretary for Ireland. That Commission laid down very clearly what was the distinction between elementary and secondary education. They said that it must be classified according to the length of time at which parents were willing to keep their children under instruction. They next observed that education, as a direct preparation for employment, must be classified as that which was to stop at about 14; next that which would stop at about 16; and, thirdly, that which was to continue to 18 or 19; and they called these three classes the third, the second, and the first grade of education respectively. When a boy was not estimated to remain at school beyond 14 it was useless to begin to teach him such subjects as required a longer time for their proper study; while if he con- tinued till 18 or 19 it might be convenient to postpone some subjects which would otherwise be taught him earlier, and therefore the system of instruction followed would greatly depend upon the period during which that boy remained at school. He (Lord George Hamilton) did not think anybody would quarrel with the accuracy of that summary. Again, at page 95, the Commission insisted that the curriculum should be adapted to these terms of instruction, and that it was educationally a mistake to deal with a boy who must leave at 14 as with a boy who could stay till 18. Therefore, in schools where low fees were paid they might observe that the great majority of the children would have to go to work early. If those children were taught by a number of teachers at very high salaries it meant that those teachers were competent to give secondary education. He believed it was also the fact that the school board gave an additional salary of £5 to every teacher who could pass in one of these specific subjects. The results seemed to him to establish a friction between the teacher and the child. The great vice of the system of payment by results was that the only test of the efficiency of the school was the amount earned. The teacher, naturally enough, said to himself—"I am put here, and I am paid a higher salary than a teacher of less knowledge, in order that I may get the greatest possible income for the school." In consequence, he very properly tried to teach as many subjects as possible, in order to get the largest possible grant. From that, one or two things must ensue. The children either went away with a smattering of knowledge, which was of no use to them, or else the teacher was subjected to the strongest inducement to bring in at low fees children of a higher social class than were intended to be educated at the school, because only those children could do full justice to his high teaching. He was bound to say, so far as his own personal opinion went, that he was not afraid of children being over-educated, in the sense of their taking away from the school too much knowledge; but what he was afraid of was that they would be made instruments for increasing the income of the school board by superficially studying more subjects than they could master. The attention of the Education Department was called to this matter by the Reports of several of their Inspectors, and in this matter there was a most remarkable unanimity among them. It was also pointed out that this question distinctly affected the middle class; because the longer a child could stop at school—particularly a school which had its income largely supplemented by the rates—the larger was the amount obtained from the ratepayer. The Manchester School Board, which had managed its schools with very great success, sent up last year to the Science and Art Department a scheme by which they proposed to establish 160 Scholarships. According to a certain clause in the rules of the Science and Art Department, wherever a locality subscribed £5 to keep a child at school, and that child passed a certain test in science, the Department contributed £5 also. It was, therefore, estimated that if that demand of the Manchester School Board was complied with it would involve a cost to the Science and Art Department of £800. On the other hand, if the London School Board, supported as it was by so many munificent individuals, were to make a corresponding claim on the Department, it would have to provide annually for 1,200 Scholarships, amounting to £6,000 a-year. Obviously, if the children of the middle classes, who were now frequenting in greater numbers the elementary schools, were allowed to compete for these prizes, the better circumstances of their parents, enabling them to remain longer at school than the poor man's child, would result finally in the fact that little by little all these Scholarships would be absorbed by that class, and the whole stream of private charity would become diverted from the purposes to which it ought to be devoted. It had sometimes been suggested that a social status should be imposed, and that children of certain position should not be allowed to go to elementary schools. He believed it would be impossible, if not unadvisable, to do that. He was not sure that it was not a good thing to allow anyone's children to go to an elementary school. It must be remembered that compulsory education applied to all children; and it would, therefore, be impossible to draw a hard-and-fast line, and to say that the children of poor people who would gain the most by sending them to work early should be obliged to be kept at school while children of a higher social grade should be left free. It was these considerations which induced the Department to think that the limit of age of 18, which had been for some years in the Code, was too high, and that it would be better to impose the lower age of 15. They were perfectly certain that by the reduction to that age they would in no way whatever prejudice the children of the working classes; but they thought, on the other hand, that they would enable them to compete on more even terms with the children of those above them in the social scale. Having imposed this limit of age, the next question he had to consider was what was to be taught in the schools. The hon. Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock) had made a very able speech in reply to a Motion that had been carried in "another place;" but he hoped the Committee would not assume for a moment that the alterations made in the Code were in any way identical with that Motion. For his part, although he had a very great respect for Lord Norton, he could not acquiesce in his suggestions or his propositions. With regard to these specific subjects, during last year a very considerable number of propositions were made to the Education Department by school boards in the North of England, suggesting the establishment of higher grade schools. The Department felt that it would be hardly fair to assent to the establishment of those schools without endeavouring, at the same time, to introduce something like order and efficiency in the lower schools; and, therefore, their assent to each individual proposition was accompanied by a certain understanding. Allusion had been made to the Reports of the Inspectors. He read them all himself, and had had the advantage of personal communication with a very considerable number of the Inspectors also. Now, although everyone at the Department must necessarily attach importance to the opinion of school boards and of any large body of teachers, yet he maintained that the opinion of the Inspectors was entitled to greater weight. If they wanted to test the efficiency of any school they did not take the opinion of a teacher, but the examiner; and for that purpose in all great public schools, whenever there was an examination of a subject of special interest or importance, an outsider was called in for that purpose. Now, the unanimity of the Inspectors on this subject was perfectly remarkable. Mr. Matthew Arnold wrote very strongly concerning it, and gave specimens of the sort of instruction which was carried on in the schools. He saw a teacher hold up an apple to a number of small children and instruct them that it was round, consisting of skin and pips, and was used to manufacture a drink called cider. Nobody could contend that instruction of that character developed the attention of the children. [An hon. MEMBER: I think it is very good.] It might be a very good definition of an apple; but he did not think it was a definition which entitled the child to 4 s. out of taxes. He might recollect a number of names and words supplied to him; but it was not exactly that particular class of instruction for which it was worth while that the nation should pay 4 s. One particular point upon which all the Inspectors were agreed was that in rural schools children's education in specific subjects began too early. The great mass of the children in rural districts went out to work after passing the 4th Standard; and, being allowed to take up these subjects in the 4th Standard, the result was that they passed one examination, earned 4 s. , and did nothing more. Therefore, his Code provided that these subjects should be taught in the 5th and 6th Standards alone. At the same time, they adopted the proposition of the hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of London, and, under the 4th Standard, gave very much greater choice to the teacher as to the class of subjects he might teach, and they accompanied that alteration by a proposal, which he was glad to say the Vice President had embodied in the Bill, to make attendance compulsory throughout the whole of England. He knew it was possible that that Bill would be opposed by a certain number of Members; but, as far as he was concerned, it had his strong approval, and he should be only too glad to help the Government in getting it passed through the House. Therefore, the result of the alterations in the Code, so far as the lower stages were concerned, were that they wished to make education cheap, compulsory, and compact, while, at the same time, they forced every child to go through this course. When, however, the child had obtained the first stage, and had acquired this necessary information, they then considered that it would be advisable to establish higher grade schools for the limited proportion of children who, either by stopping longer, or by showing exceptional capacity, wished to continue their education in higher subjects. As regarded the grade schools to which they gave sanction, there was only one difference of opinion among the school boards. In certain localities they wished to establish these schools simply for the benefit of the children who had passed Standard 4, while in other places they were of opinion that these schools might be attended by children of somewhat higher social standing, and that if they came as infants they should be permitted to attend these higher grade schools at once, provided they paid a higher fee. The advantages of these higher grade schools might be very briefly summed up. They effected economy, so far as the ratepayer was concerned, because the child was compelled to pay a sum more than it would pay if it attended a lower class elementary school. In the next place, they promoted efficiency by concentrating the attention of the children taught upon subjects a complete mastery of which was absolutely essential; and they also promoted emulation by making promotion from a lower school to a higher school the result of success in passing a standard in which the child was examined. Further, they benefited the stupid child by obtaining from him in these lower grade schools the more exclusive time and attention of the master. The condition in which the Government would be placed by rejecting those proposals was that, at the present moment, any child could attend an elementary school. They were next going to allow those specific subjects, which really belonged to secondary education, to be continued as primary education, and they were going to allow children to remain at school until 18. How could the Government prevent elementary education gradually becoming secondary if they once allowed these subjects to be taught? It would be absurd to say that they would only allow these subjects to be taught provided they were taught badly. It might be advisable to establish a system of rate-supported secondary education; but if that were to be done, let it be done openly. It certainly ought not to be done by a side wind. He was quite sure the Vice President's mind was open on this subject; and, as the right hon. Gentleman had merely postponed a decision on the matter until he had had time to consider it, he sincerely hoped that when he came to move the Estimates next year he would arrive at the same opinion as his Predecessors. There was one difficulty which, no doubt, the Vice President had considered already, and which suggested itself in connection with the higher grade school established at Sheffield. There might be certain cases in which there was a local College or a higher grade school established, and it might be desirable to pass children from the elementary school straight through, until they had obtained sufficient knowledge to pass into this College or higher grade school. That was one of the objects of the Sheffield School Board. Now, the best method of meeting this, as it seemed to him, was to adhere to the proposition of allowing no child to attend school after 15. Assuming that there was then a certain number who wished to continue their education until they could pass into this College, they might allow classes to be established in connection with the Science and Art Department, and, by those classes, the children would earn a larger sum than if they had been attending an elementary school. By this very obvious expedient he believed they would be able to avoid the difficulty which they would otherwise have, undoubtedly, to meet, of allowing children up to the age of 18 to attend elementary schools. There was one argument used to which great importance had been attached—namely, very slight cost was incurred in teaching these specific subjects. The Vice President had said that they merely cost £20,000. Now, that constituted his very objection to it. In order to obtain a grant of £20,000 they were putting an enormous strain upon every teacher in the United Kingdom. Every child they passed in these subjects obtained for them an increase in their salaries, and they all, consequently, worked for it. There were numberless instances of boys and girls breaking down under the strain. Now, if by this payment something like£200,000 could have been earned, there might have been reason for maintaining the present system; but the fact that, notwithstanding the utmost endeavours of the teachers, only such a very small proportion of children could pass, seemed to him a conclusive argument in favour of his proposition. £20,000 did not represent the total expenditure of public money under that head. The expenditure of rates, in order to earn the grant from taxes, was ten-fold greater than the grant itself; because each manager believed that the efficiency of the school was regulated by the amount which he earned, and if he could earn an extra 1 d . he was quite willing to spend 1 s . for that purpose. That appeared to him to be wrong, and it was on that account that they made the alterations that had been made. Their object had been—to use an engineering expression—to make the first gradient of elementary education as easy and broad as possible, so that every child in England and Wales could be forced up it. That stage being attained, their object was to enable the cleverer children of the working classes, or middle classes, to pass on to higher gradations from that one, by means of Scholarships, Exhibitions or otherwise, and so pass on to whatever local Colleges might be available. But they had considered that they would not be acting fairly to come forward and ask for a large sum of money in support of elementary education, when it was quite possible that the money of the poorer would be sacrificed to that of the well-to-do, and the richer class would obtain larger contributions from the taxpayer towards the education of his children. Those alterations which they had suggested were not casual or accidental, but were the result of long and deliberate investigation, made in the interest of the children themselves, and supported by an overwhelming mass of authoritative opinion. He was quite certain that the more these alterations were considered, the more would they be found to infuse symmetry, efficiency, and economy into our educational system.

said, he was much gratified at the clear way in which the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council (Mr. Mundella) had placed before them the educational condition of the country. He would venture to say that the speech they had just heard from the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) would give equal satisfaction to all those who felt an interest in our educational progress, and for this reason—that the noble Lord had distinctly disclaimed any sympathy with the Motion which had recently been made in "another place." He need not say that that Motion had caused great alarm to all those who were anxious that educational progress should continue. He was sorry that the noble Lord had not proceeded one step furthur, and explained to the Committee how it was that that Motion received the support of the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond and Gordon), who was his chief in the Department of Education under the late Government. The proposal of Lord Norton, which had received the approval of the noble Duke, was that the subjects taught in the 4th Schedule should no longer form part of the programme in elementary schools. He hoped that his right hon. Friend below him (Mr. Mundella) would long fill the Office that he then so worthily occupied; but they must not forget that the time might come when those hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who then sat opposite would again occupy the Treasury Bench; and he thought, therefore, that it would be satisfactory to the Committee and the country if they could know that that support was only a passing eccentricity on the part of the noble Duke, and that there was no intention, any more on the other side of the House than on that side, that our educational progress should be interfered with. He might, perhaps, be allowed to say one or two words with reference to the line of argument of the noble Lord, by which he defended the alterations proposed by the late Government. One of those arguments was the line of distinction drawn between elementary and secondary education by the Government of which he formed a part. The noble Lord had quoted from a Report that deserved the greatest respect and attention—namely, the Report of the Schools Inquiry Commission. He had quoted a passage which struck him (Mr. Samuelson) most forcibly. The noble Lord had said that in those cases where children at an early age left school the proper course of instruction would be the same in kind, but not in extent, as that for those who remained longer. But what was the statement of those gentlemen? It was to the effect that in those cases in which children were not kept at school to a late age, the instruction in the same subjects should be begun earlier; whereas it might be deferred, in the case of those who remained, until such an age as 18. That was exactly what was being done. Children who left earlier had thus the opportunity of being instructed in subjects which, otherwise, would not be acquired at all by them. The noble Lord had referred to the Inspectors' Reports as being adverse. He (Mr. Samuelson) had read those Inspectors' Reports; and, with the exception of one, he had not found any who recommended that the subjects in the Schedule should be no longer taught. It was true that they complained of the way in which the subjects were taught. But the fact was that, in many cases, the teachers themselves were strange to the subjects. It struck him that what was happening in that matter was similar to what occurred with elementary science teaching under the Science and Art Department in former times. He himself was one of those who called attention to what he was afraid was mere cram going on in those science classes. But let them look at what those classes were 10 years ago and now. They had improved year by year, until they found that, at the present time, the pupils were really receiving a sound elementary scientific education. He would venture to say that, in process of time, that which had occurred in regard to those science and art classes would also occur with the elementary schools; and he further believed that the teaching in those elementary schools would be of the greatest value, as a preparation for those science classes. His right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council had stated that he was sorry that the night schools were not flourishing; but they now had the night schools of science and art, and if pupils were properly prepared in the elementary schools they could carry the system forward until there should be scarcely a working man or woman but would have the opportunity of acquiring sound elementary instruction in science and art. With regard to pupil teachers, the noble Lord had referred to the Report of last year on that subject, and had given them a quotation. All that he could say was, that if an Inspector knew that the children were instructed in the way he had mentioned it was his business not to pass them. Were the Inspectors chosen from the best class of men? Would not the best men be those who would bring a large amount of experience in elementary teaching? Would it not be well to allow the higher elementary schoolmasters to proceed to the office of Inspector? Such a prospect would induce many men to enter into the profession who refused to do so now, because there was no higher appointment than that of schoolmaster to which they could aspire. He thought that the question of inspection had hardly yet received the amount of attention it deserved, either from his right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council or the noble Lord who had preceded him in Office. He wished to ask a question; but he did not know whether he ought to apply to the right hon. Gentleman or the noble Lord. It appeared from the Report that 29 Inspectors were unattached. He should like to know the meaning of that. He wished also to ask one other question with regard to that. He found that of those 29 six had been appointed in the month of May last. He wished to ask why there was such urgency in the month of May, when certain events were going forward which it was not necessary for him to allude to? Why was it necessary that those gentlemen should be appointed, and those appointments made? He thought the Committee were entitled to some explanation with regard to that matter. The noble Lord, in a recent speech, had said something about great social forces gravitating towards Conservatism. He should like to ask whether that was one of the great social forces? With regard to the question whether they could be sure that too much time was not devoted to instruction in special subjects to the injury of the ordinary subjects—he meant the "three R's"—he thought one fact ought to be borne in mind, that unless there be 75 per cent of passes in those three subjects, no payment could be made for the higher ones. He found a suggestion made by some Inspectors, with which, he was disposed to coincide, which was that no claim should be allowed in respect of special subjects unless the child had passed in all the elementary subjects. He believed that to be a matter worthy of consideration. He wished to say one word, before he sat down, with regard to pupil teachers. Some time since he had called attention to the subject, and had recommended that the school boards of large towns should have the power to establish Training Colleges. For his own part, he was of opinion that the whole system of pupil teachers required to be radically altered. His right hon. Friend had spoken approvingly of making alterations as regarded the limit of the number of pupil teachers. He would rather have heard him say that the number of pupil teachers should not be limited, but that the manager of the school should have the power of engaging as many as he pleased; but that, if the number was increased, they should be employed only part of the day in teaching, instead of being, as now, on duty the whole day, and fagged out in the evening, when they had still their own lessons to prepare. He believed that a system of half-time for pupil teachers would work well, especially in combination with the establishment of day schools in the larger towns. There could be no doubt that if they wanted children to be well taught they must place them under the care of competent teachers. That led him to a remark which he understood the noble Lord to have made, but which he thought was a mistake, that the lowest grade children should have the least competent teachers. On the contrary, they ought, he believed, to have the very highest class of teachers. He remembered visiting some schools in Wurtemburg, one of those parts of Germany where education had made as great progress as, probably, in any. Speaking with the Minister of Education there upon that subject, he said that they sent the best masters into the rural districts, where the children remained the shortest time at school. Wherever there was ignorance they wanted the best men in order to cope successfully with it. He did not think it possible that the pupil teacher system, as it existed at present, could be justified or maintained; and he was glad to see that the London School Board had at length been allowed by the Education Department to adopt a system by which pupil teachers were to have the benefit of combined instruction under the most competent masters. Nothing short of a great change in our system of instruction would ever place the education of this country in the position in which he hoped before long to see it. The hon. Member for East Gloucestershire (Mr. J. R. Yorke) had referred to the burden of payment for elementary education. But the education which was provided at the public expense was paid for by the taxpayers and ratepayers; and who were they, if not the people who were deriving—or who might, if they chose, derive—the advantages of a system of national education? He could not see why the present system should not be acceptable to all classes in the country. With regard to what was said by the noble Lord (Lord George Hamilton) as to the disadvantage under which the poorer children laboured from the standard of education being raised in the schools, he would not repeat what had been already said by his right hon. Friend (Mr. Mundella) in reference to the success of the poor children at Manchester. Out of 72 admitted into the Manchester Grammar School, 62 had come, by competition, from the elementary schools. He should like to refer to a remark of an Inspector, who was one of the ablest they had, to whom his right hon. Friend had already referred—Mr. Aldis. In his Report from Yorkshire, page 217 of the present year's Report, he said—

"The chief hope of future progress must be by the middle classes sending their children to the elementary schools. The evil of the present system was that those children were not at present sent. He believed that the best plan was for boys and girls to attend school together, and for the middle and upper classes to attend also."

Nothing could be more in favour of a high standard of instruction in our elementary schools than that Report of one of the ablest Inspectors. In conclusion, he would only say that he had perfect confidence so long as his right hon. Friend remained at the head, or was one of the chief directors of the elementary education in this country. So long as he occupied his present Office, he was assured that there was no cause to fear that there would be any cessation of progress in the elementary education of the country.

I must thank the Vice President for the speech with which he opened this discussion, the spirit and scope of which justify the confidence felt by the country at the appointment of the right hon. Gentleman to his present Office. I trust, however, that the right hon. Gentleman will be a little more decided in his assurance that the specific subjects known as the 4th Schedule shall not be removed from the course of education given in our elementary schools. The teaching of these specfic subjects, 10 in number—including mechanics, botany, domestic economy, French, German, &c.—has hitherto been open to children in the 4th, 5th, and 6th Standards. The late Government, in the Revised Code issued early in the year, made a backward step in our national education by removing these subjects from the 4th Standard, and allowing them to be taught only in the 5th and 6th Standards. Now, there are only about half the number of children in the 5th Standard that there are in the 4th, because the great majority leave school for work after they have passed the 4th Standard. It will be, therefore, seen what a large number of the poorer and working classes would by this alteration have to leave school deprived of all education in these specific subjects. The Vice President deserves the thanks of the country and of the working classes especially for the higher and wider view he has taken of elementary education, and for the promptitude with which he has restored the Code to its original form. It is true that the late Government allowed these specific subjects to be taken as class subjects; but this is a mere delusion. Only two class subjects are allowed to be taken, and as these would be almost certainly grammar and geography, or history, the teaching of other subjects would be rendered impossible. Besides, it is almost useless to attempt to teach science by means of mere reading lessons in classes. When taught as a specific subject each child is individually examined in the subject taken up, and fair results are likely to be obtained. Now, Sir, in reading the discussion outside the House one might conclude that a child is crammed with the whole or the greater number of these 10 higher subjects. The fact is that only two are allowed to be taken by a child in the 4th, 5th, or 6th Standard, and three by a child above the 6th Standard. But we are now threatened with an agitation led by a noble Lord (Lord Norton) to abolish the 4th Schedule altogether. The noble Lord has successfully carried a Motion to this effect in "another place." One reason given for this abolition is that as children can earn a grant of 4 s . per annum for each of these higher subjects, therefore teachers neglect the teaching of the "three R's " in their anxiety to earn the higher grant. So far from this being the case, the teaching of the specific subjects is a direct incentive to the teaching of the "three R's." No payments can be made for these higher subjects unless the school throughout can pass 75 per cent of its children in the "three R's " in the Standards; and it is found, as a matter of fact, that those schools which are most successful in teaching the specific subjects are also most successful in teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. The second reason given for abolishing the 4th Schedule is that it is unfair to give secondary education at the expense of rates and taxes raised for the purpose of elementary teaching. Now, Sir, who is to define what is elementary education? The Act of 1870 does not do so. The Revised Code conveniently defines an elementary school as "a school in which elementary education is the principal part of the instruction given." The fact is, our ideas of elementary education will increase as our ideas of education generally extend and deepen. The most highly taught man in our midst, if he will judge what he knows by what he does not know, will find that his knowledge is of a very rudimentary character. With the permission of the Committee I would venture on a definition of the elementary education to be given in our public schools, and I would ask the Department to accept it. I would define elementary education as being the best possible education that can be given under certain special circumstances. There are two limits to it, natural and self-acting ones. One is the capacity of the child for learning, the other the number of years during which his necessities will enable him to remain at school. The noble Lord has quoted Birmingham as a place where a state of things exists which makes it quite inexcusable that what he calls secondary education should be given in the elementary schools. Now, Sir, let us look at this model condition of things which is to warrant the abolition of the teaching of higher subjects. In Birmingham we have an endowed school with an income of about£20,000. For three centuries this school has been free; but through the action of a self-elected Board of Governors the benefits of the school have been confined mainly to the middle and upper classes. The poorest children, with equal rights and greater need, have received no share in the blessings of this magnificent foundation. Recently, under the Endowed Schools Act, fees have been imposed, and the school is no longer free. So that now, when the cleverest of the poorer children could take advantage of the higher education given in the school, the fees form an effectual barrier to their entrance. As a Governor of the school I have, in the interests of the poorer children, contended against this shortsighted policy. It is true there are about 30 free Scholarships per annum to the middle school; but, as these are open to all comers, the children of the elementary schools have but small chance in obtaining them. But suppose there were sufficient free Scholarships for all the clever children, which are about 1 or 2 per cent of those in the common schools, what is to become of the 98 or 99 per cent who are left? According to the contention of the noble Lord they are to be turned adrift with the merest rudimentary teaching. Now, Sir, I am not arguing against secondary teaching. Create your schools by all means of the 3rd, 2nd, and 1st grade, as recommended by the Schools Inquiry Commission (they do not yet exist), make them as complete as possible, and draft your clever children into them; but do not touch or impair the sound, solid education given in our elementary schools. I am more anxious for the education of the average child, of the great mass of the children of the people, than I am for that of the few clever children. I want a whole people comfortably educated, not simply a few to be highly educated and the rest to be consigned to comparative ignorance, or only to the knowledge of the ''three R's." It has been stated by noble Lords that since the Act of 1870 has been in force plough boys have been scarce, plain needlework cannot be got, that weeds are overgrowing the land, and that it is of no use teaching working lads Latin, &c. Sir, it is too late to use such arguments as these. Noble Lords are reckoning without their hosts. The common school has taken root in England. The people have adopted it, having found out that all their best hopes are bound up in it. They submit to compulsion for it. They are content to be taxed for it, and will never allow a backward step to be taken with respect to it. It appears to me that all the arguments used on the other side tend not to the removal of these higher subjects, but to show the necessity for improvements in the methods of teaching them—for improved arrangements—so that the best use might be made of the limited time which the majority of children can spend in the school. With this view I would urge the abolition, as quickly as possible, of the system of pupil teachers and paid monitors—children teaching children, wasting precious time—a system as wasteful as it is expensive. Efficient adult teachers would cost more, no doubt; but, judged by results, they would be found far more economical than the present system. Another reason given for the withdrawal of these higher subjects from our elementary schools is that this teaching is worthless, that it is a mere cramming the children with names, and with useless information soon to be forgotten. This is not so; on the contrary, this teaching, elementary as it is, gives the child a taste for some particular study in science or language which, in many cases, is continued and carried to a valuable point in after life. As Chairman for many years of the Birmingham Free Libraries Committee, I have watched with much interest and pleasure the effects of this teaching on the number of the readers, and on the character of the books read. In our Reference Library I find that 68,000 volumes, or more than 40 per cent of our annual issue, are given out to young persons from 14 to 20 years of age, the majority of whom we may presume have passed through our public schools. While in 1870 only 12½per cent of this issue were books of art, science, and natural history, in 1877 above 27½per cent were books of this kind; and our last returns, unfortunately burnt, showed a still larger increase. Standing in our libraries a few nights ago, I noticed the books in demand by the young persons of the working classes then present. I will just give two or three as a sample:—A working jeweller, aged 17, Buckmaster's Inorganic Chemistry ; a glassblower, aged 19, Animal Physiology ; a brush maker, 20, British Entomology , &c., &c. Now, Sir, I do not want to draw any positive conclusions from these facts; but it is interesting and gratifying to know that the young people who formerly constituted our difficult, if not our dangerous, classes, are now so well employed. This reading and this study are the direct results of the teaching of higher subjects in our schools, which teaching it is now contended should be withdrawn. It must be for the welfare of the country that such teaching should be continued and very widely extended. It is important that our girls in elementary schools should know something of physiology and domestic economy. It is in the interest of our national industries generally that children who are to be workmen should know something of these specific subjects. Besides this—and, as I think, above this—such studies tend to increase the health, happiness, and enjoyments of the people. They give a lad an interest in something outside himself. They give him some knowledge of the natural objects around him and above him, and awaken some perception of his relations to those objects; and, generally, by developing his intelligence, enable him to perform in a better manner those duties in life, of whatsoever nature, to which he may happen to be called. I trust this discussion will settle the lines on which our national education is to run; for these sudden and radical changes, made quietly by the revision of the Code, must tend to unsettle, not only the children, but the able body of teachers who are to be considered in this matter. It is impossible that we can be engaged on a greater subject than that of the education of the people. We may pass Savings Banks Bills, or Licensing Laws, for the encouragement of thrift and morality; but I venture to say that it is in the full and rapid development of our public schools—by creating self-help and self-respect among the people—that our main hope of permanent improvement lies. I am more and more convinced that to sound national education we must mainly, if not wholly, rely for the solution of those social problems—including drunkenness, crime, and pauperism—which cause such anxiety to all who have the welfare of the people at heart, and who firmly believe that the most backward and degraded of our fellow men will do better in the measure that they are taught better. Therefore, and in conclusion, I earnestly hope that the Government will yield to no pressure, will listen to no advice, either to lower the quality or to lessen the range of our national education.

complimented the hon. Member on the very interesting speech which he had just delivered. It must commend itself to the general feeling of the Committee; and, for his part, he could cordially agree in the tone and spirit of those remarks. They were all agreed in the desirability of giving every possible facility for the advancement of knowledge towards its highest goal; and the real issue between them, so far as there was any issue at all, was in what way they could obtain the best result. They were all agreed that, if it was possible, every person should have the power to rise to the highest intellectual distinction; and they were not without examples in the past that that had been done, and was at the present time being done. But what they had to consider in regard to elementary education, as presented to them by the Vice President in his Estimates, was whether this higher form of education was to be a necessary part of the elementary education of the country. With all respect for those who had taken rather a sanguine view of the matter, he must call attention to first principles. The object of their elementary education should be to lay foundations deep and strong upon which the wise builders who came after them could erect a fair and substantial building. Unless they spent time and labour upon those foundations they would never be able to attain the result at which they aimed, and they would never be able to raise a beautiful superstructure here-after. He was fortified in this opinion by the fact that a difficulty had not infrequently been found even among persons who presented themselves for examination at the Training Colleges. Many of the persons who came to be examined were in an unsatisfactory condition, because they had not themselves got the foundation upon which they wanted to build; and, so far from being qualified to instruct, they were behind- hand in the very elements of education. Again, those who knew their Universities knew that young men often came up there very ill-prepared in the foundations of the classical languages, suffering from what the Bishop of Exeter, himself a high authority on education, had called ''systematic smattering." He could not help thinking that they might draw the same illustration from the work of those who built the houses of the last 30 or 40 years. Those people were too anxious to obtain cheap and rapid results, and they did not sufficiently attend to laying the foundations. He was not going into the question of the merits of the two Codes as argued by his noble Friend; but as reference had been made to the opinions of the Inspectors on this point, he thought it was only just that one or two words should be said with reference to them. They must remember that these Inspectors were persons naturally interested in higher class education; that they were themselves men of high culture, and that their sympathies would always be with the best education. The Reports of the Inspectors contained warnings on this subject. Mr. Bernays, of the Durham district, who was a first-rate authority on this subject, said that specific subjects ought not to be attempted except in schools where there was a large staff of efficient teachers. He quoted that remark, because it, to some extent, applied to the speech they had just heard from the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Collings), who was himself a distinguished member of the Birmingham School Board. The schools of that board, and ordinary rural schools, were very different things. He (Mr. J. G. Talbot) lived in a community which had a high opinion of itself, and, perhaps, rightly; but it was not possible to apply the same rule to a town where the people lived at high pressure physically, morally, and intellectually, and to the average country school. It must be remembered that the average intelligence in the country was not high, and it did not at all follow, because these things could be taught in Birmingham, that they could be taught equally well in the country. Now, again, what did Mr. Colville—Shrewsbury district—say?—

"On the whole, I think the teachers have been attempting too much in this direction. In many schools the time given to these extra subjects could ill be spared, and the bare smattering of sciences acquired by the few has been poor compensation for the ignorance of the many in more rudimentary matters."

That was an instance in exact proof of what he was complaining of—that the foundations were neglected while they reared the superstructure. Mr. King, Truro district, said—

"The specific subjects of instruction are seldom taught, and still less frequently with any useful results. The special subjects should he confined to Standards 5 and 6, and further confined to children who had passed in reading, writing, and arithmetic."

Mr. Moncrieff, Bristol district, a well-known and honoured Inspector, said—

"I should like to say a few words on the subjects of the 4th Schedule. As far as my own district is concerned, I might safely leave it alone. The science subjects have nearly disappeared, and I am glad of it; because in the way in which they were generally taught the time spent on them seemed to me to be absolutely wasted. Yet I cannot but feel that as our general education advances most of these subjects ought somehow to find a place in any complete system."

That was, no doubt, very strong language; but it seemed to him to be justified. He was not going to say that these specific subjects ought not to be attempted; but what he did say was, that they should not attempt too much by unduly encouraging this kind of teaching in their elementary schools. He did not object to it at Birmingham and other large towns, where schools could be graded; but in the country he maintained it was a different matter. He would next like to call the attention of the Committee to a Petition presented to that House from the General Association of Church School Managers and Teachers, in which they urged that much would be done to encourage education by extending the principle already recognized in honour certificates in granting to children of the labouring classes Scholarships in secondary schools. That seemed to him a very sound principle, for if these children were granted Scholarships in secondary schools there would be time there to teach them subjects which they could not undertake in elementary schools. Another important reason for urging his views upon the Committee was that if they were to teach these specific subjects throughout the country in their elementary schools, they must necessarily cast a great burden upon the teachers. He believed that they were putting upon these young people a pressure which they would not be able to bear; and he was sure that in that opinion he should be confirmed by clergy, school managers, and others who were acquainted with the subject. The result of putting such an undue pressure and strain upon these young minds and bodies would be that they would be compelled to import into the schools a weak and half-nurtured class of teachers not fit for the work which they would have to do. If strained in this way, these young people would have to complete an undue amount of work before they came to the schools as teachers, and they would not be in a condition of mind and body which would enable them to educate the children in the way that was desired. He hoped that in the remarks he had made he had not left the impression that he was prejudiced against the teaching of these subjects. It would be absurd to grudge any single individual the opportunity of obtaining a higher education; but let them not speak of elementary education in one breath, and say, in the next, that it was not to be elementary. There had been, he thought, a little want of consideration shown to the taxpayers of this country. The hon. Member who had last spoken said that the taxpayers would be willing to pay any amount for education. No doubt, there were some of them who were willing to pay for the acquirement by their children of more than merely elementary education, and he honoured them for their willingness. They should not, however, forget that a day would never come when they would not have hewers of wood and drawers of water amongst them. They were, therefore, throwing upon the ratepayers the burden of educating these persons for something to which they, perhaps, wished them to attain, but which most of them would not have the opportunity of obtaining. He thought that it would be better, as a general rule, to give them a sound elementary education, which would fit them for the position they would occupy, ample provision being made for the few to rise to greater heights of knowledge. There was as much difference between a sound and an unsound elementary education as between a sound and an unsound classical education. In conclusion, he had pleasure in joining in the chorus of congratulation with re- spect to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council, who had opened the discussion. It was very gratifying to him that there had been so candid a recognition of the benefits the voluntary system had rendered to the country. With regard to the expense of the voluntary schools, he might say that the voluntary schools were cheaper even in London than the board schools, and those who had long supported them ought not to be dissatisfied when they found the result of their labours appreciated by those in authority. If they (the Opposition) could render any assistance to the right hon. Gentleman in maintaining a high rate of elementary education in the country he might at all times command their services.

said, that he had rarely listened to a debate which was, on the whole, so instructive and so interesting. He wished to say a word or two in reply to what had fallen from the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock), who took the view that there ought to be secondary schools, and that they should keep the other schools purely for elementary education. He wanted to know where the children of the rural districts would get their education if that were the case? Where were they to take their children in the rural districts to obtain their higher education, and who was to pay the costs of their maintenance while at those schools? It seemed to him that the proper course was to give the best education they could at the schools of the country, where the hewers of wood and the drawers of water would go, and afterwards to allow those who could obtain a higher education to do it for themselves. During the course of the discussion, fear had been expressed lest the middle classes should crowd into the elementary schools, instead of leaving them to the working classes. He was afraid that he should never live to see the day when the middle classes would so far forget their class prejudices as to send their children to the elementary schools of the country. He had looked into the subject carefully, in order to see how far the middle classes were sending their children to those schools. He could, however, find no evidence of anything of the kind. The small shopkeeper and the poor clerk might sometimes send their children to the elementary schools; but the poor clerk was often worse off in circumstances than the artizan, and as he contributed largely to the education rate it was right that he should avail himself of it so far as he possibly could. He had been appealed to to be more definite in his preference for specific subjects. He did not know that he could be more definite than at present; but he might say that if he found instruction in the specific subjects interfering with thoroughness of teaching in the more elementary subjects, he should feel it his duty at once to modify the system. It was possible, perhaps, that the number of specific subjects might be somewhat modified, and to enact that they should be taught in certain Standards. But these were matters of detail, and required very careful consideration. He had not, however, the slightest intention of abolishing these specific subjects, under any circumstances whatever. No one would ever dream of it. It had been said that they might have very efficient class education; but that education in the specific subjects was likely to lead to the neglect of the more elementary subjects. He would remind the Committee that they must teach elementary subjects as they could be best taught. The Scotch were the best educated people that they had in this country, and they were taught 10 times more specific subjects than the English people. If, therefore, they began by reducing specific subjects, they must begin by doing so in Scotland. Were they to do that, they would, doubtless, have a demand for Home Rule for Scotland. So far from the Scottish people wishing anything of that kind, Scottish deputations had pressed upon him the necessity of making their education higher and more complete than it was at present. He trusted that the English people would emulate the Scotch. He was glad to have the support of the noble Lord on this as on other occasions. The noble Lord had made a most able speech, and he was glad that what he proposed met with his approval. With respect to the cost of education given by the different school boards, he might say that he was no advocate for extravagance on the part of school boards. He objected to unnecessary expenditure in education, as much because it tended to make education unpopular as for anything else; and he thought that the school boards would do well to be as moderate as possible in their expenditure, out of regard to the interest of education itself. He could assure the noble Lord that it was absolutely necessary that in some of their large towns there should be low feed schools. To take the case of that great Metropolis, they found it impossible to examine into the individual circumstances of every child in a population of between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000. Therefore, unless they had low fees, they would not, perhaps, be able to get any at all. The hon. Member for East Gloucestershire (Mr. J. R. Yorke) had said that the rate-paid instruction ought to be given on the same principle as out-door relief was given. In his (Mr. Mundella's) opinion, there was nothing, if there was anything which would make education repugnant to the people of this country, than to make it a pauper education. Whether they gave a generous, or whether they gave a miserable, education, they would require the same schools and the same teachers, and the cost would be nearly the same. He trusted that they would always give as good and as thorough an education as they could from their sense of duty and respect to their fellow-countrymen. After the interesting discussion that they had had, he trusted that the Committee would now pass the Vote.

said, that the fact of certain Inspectors being appointed just before the late Education Department went out of Office was due to parsimony on the part of the Treasury. The Inspectors ought to have been appointed much earlier than they were, the application for their appointment having been made in December 1879.

said, that elementary schools in the Eastern part of London, with the management of which he had been connected, had received very favourable Reports from the Education Department. He could not help thinking that it had been forgotten how very much had been done for education by means of the revival of the grammar schools throughout the country. They supplied that education which was called elementary; but he feared that there was great danger of their over-educating what were called the labouring ing classes. To illustrate what he meant, he would mention that a page boy who had been brought up in one of the elementary schools was desired by his master to carry up the coals. In reply to that request the boy said—"How can you expect that I should do so, considering the education I have received?" It seemed to him that that remark of the page boy illustrated the objection to over-educating those who might fairly be called upon to do domestic work. He thought that introducing all the different subjects which were included in Schedule 4 would make them go very much beyond what was originally intended in the elementary education of the country. There was one subject in domestic economy to which he would venture to call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President. It was that of cooking. That subject ought to be encouraged; but, at present, it received no grant whatever from the Department. If many of the subjects now taught were omitted in a great measure from the elementary schools, he thought the school education would be carried on much better, so far as regarded reading, writing, and arithmetic, the three subjects to which elementary education ought to be directed. When other subjects were taught it only led to disturbance in the minds of children.

Vote agreed to .

(2.) Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £179,768, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1881, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Science and Art Department, and of the Establishments connected therewith."

said, that he should, first of all, like to know whether the defalcations of Mr. Simpkins at South Kensington had yet been entirely made up? He believed that by an official letter, dated the 5th of September last, it was shown that a balance of£383,000 was still outstanding. He thought that the Committee would like to know how the matter had been finally settled. With regard to the question of opening Museums on Sundays, perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would give the Committee some information. He also wished to ask a question with, reference to the sums paid for prizes, &c., to encourage instruction in art. It seemed that in England and Wales the sum spent was £68,519; in Scotland, £8,330; while in Ireland £1,201 was spent. It was not at all astonishing that prizes no greater than £1,201 were secured by students in Ireland against £68,000 in England and Wales, when they found on page 303 that whereas there were 181 science schools in England against 127 in Scotland, there were four Training Colleges in Scotland and one in Ireland. He should like to draw attention to that fact. It seemed to him unfair that England and Wales should have 33 Training Colleges, Scotland four, and that Ireland should be left without any Training College at all. The last point to which he wished to draw the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council was with regard to what he must think was a mistake in the accounts. On page 304 it was stated that one of the officials was paid a salary which increased yearly by an annual increment of £25; but, according to the Estimates, he was this year paid £24 more than he had any right to receive, judging by the salary paid him last year.

said, that with regard to the defalcations which had been mentioned, and which took place 12 years ago, a small amount would be carried forward this year against that account; but that matter did not appear upon the Vote now before the Committee. With regard to the science prizes for students, if the amount taken by students from Ireland was small, as compared with that taken by students from Scotland and England, he could only assure the hon. Member that it would give him very great pleasure, when he next had the honour to move the Estimates, to move for an increased Vote for Ireland. It was no fault of the Department that these schools had not been established in Ireland. The same encouragement was given in Ireland as was given in the other countries; and he could only assure the hon. Member that it was from no fault of the Government that as much advantage was not taken of the instruction in Ireland as in the other countries.

said, that there were schools in Ireland, but no art Training Colleges.

said, that the Training Colleges did not come under that Vote. With respect to the reason why there were no Training Colleges in Ireland while they existed in England, he must refer the hon. Member to his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Doubtless, he would be able to give him a satisfactory answer. The growth of art teaching in England was at a prodigious rate.

said, that what they condemned in the art teaching of Ireland was the system. For seven Sessions he had been calling attention to the fact that the system in Ireland had fairly broken down. Why was it that more money was not taken for prizes in Ireland? The right hon. Gentleman said that he would be most happy to move an increased Vote for the prizes won by Irish art students. They had no doubt of that; but the reason why the students could not take these prizes was because of the centralizing system of South Kensington. They had never ceased to condemn that system, which had grasped at retaining in its hands the whole of the art education of the country. Five years ago he had asked that this art education of the youth of Ireland should be put under an Irish Board, composed of noblemen and gentlemen connected with Ireland—such as the Duke of Leinster and Sir Arthur Guinness—and at the time he was able to name some six noblemen identified with art education in Ireland who would have popularized it, and not leave the matter under the mismanagement of South Kensington. He should never cease to protest against the centralizing efforts of that over-gorged institution, which was doing a vast amount of work in this country, doubtless because it could not help it, but was not doing anything even in this country comparable with what was done in other countries at much less cost. He had long held that certain elementary art education ought to be given in the primary schools, and he spoke now with especial reference to the youth of Ireland. It was painful to him to see Irishmen going abroad, and carrying into the market nothing but rude and unskilled labour, while he knew they had an intelligence which fitted them to be something better than hod men and labourers on the railways and canals of America. Again and again, on the floor of that House, he had entreated Ministers to give to Ireland, in its primary and other schools, a system of art education of a rudimental kind which would help them in their progress in the world, and qualify them for greater enterprize. But South Kensington would not do that. Irish Members hoped that for many years the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education might propose this Vote; but they were obliged to impeach the system which he administered. He asked that an Art Institution should be established in Dublin. That proposal had for a moment been entertained by the Conservative Administration; but although it was met in the most generous spirit by Mr. Ward Hunt, he was ashamed to say it was strangled afterwards by those in favour of centralization, and who would have made art education in Ireland subordinate to South Kensington. He again warned the right hon. Gentleman that night that, labour as he pleased, he could not produce any thing but failure out of a vicious system, and failure was already waiting on these efforts of the Department with regard to education in Ireland. He would tell him what he had told his Predecessors some three years ago—that there was in Dublin, on Flinder's Green, a Science and Art Institute than which the right hon. Gentleman could see nothing more instructive in Dublin. It was a splendid building, with an admirable collection of specimens, and with first-class Professors; but they lectured there to marble effigies and empty benches. Such, was the South Kensington institution as it presented itself to the Irish people. But he asked for an Irish Board, composed of Irish gentlemen, who would manage art education—such an institution as South Kensington ought to be—and then they would have a living reality instead of an idea. He would say, from an English point of view, that one-half of the objects in South Kensington Museum should be dispersed into the Manchesters, the Sheffields, and the Glasgows of the Kingdom. He maintained that South Kensington was gorged with what would educate the whole of the youth of England, and he invited his right hon. Friend's attention to these remarks, which he had urged in that House on several occasions in the course of the last seven years.

said, he observed in the Estimates the sum of£1,800 for the reproduction of works of art, and on page 296 the sum of£750 for photography. It appeared to him that these items were either too large or very much too small, and that the public, so far as he had been able to observe, derived no benefit from the outlay. He believed that a great deal of good might be done, as had been suggested already, by reproducing the artistic treasures of our Museums in the form of electrotypes, and placing them in the other Museums throughout the country. The process would not be an expensive one, and might easily be applied. They had in the British Museum a collection of antiquities which he believed to be unequalled in the whole world. They had a complete system of artistic treasures, illustrating antique art from the earliest times, besides engravings of the finest description, presenting a history of art which had no parallel, together with a collection of coins and medals. But these objects did little good. They exercised no influence whatever on the industrial art of the country. No wonder, then, that the Radicals complained of these sums being asked for. Only a small proportion of the working population of the country came up to London at all, and the great bulk of them derived no advantage from these unrivalled collections. He thought Her Majesty's Government should take in hand some business-like scheme for re-producing these works of art, and distributing them through the country. He suggested that the process of making casts should be done at some central place. The prime cost would be really small; and he believed that the towns benefited by them would not object to pay their proportion. This country was greatly behind Continental countries in matters of this kind, not from any defect in the national taste, for that was excellent, and the Paris Exhibition had shown that in all kinds of ornament and artistic work this country had no rival in the world. He thought it would be wise to take a leaf out of the book of the French in relation to these matters. The Report of the Lyons Chambers of Commerce was in his possession, and the President of the Chamber therein re- commended that a collection of copies should be got of the best works of art throughout the world.

said, an Act of Parliament had been passed in the Session of the year 1877, authorizing the Commissioners of Public Works to build a Science and Art Museum in Dublin;£10,000 had been voted for the purpose, and a section of the Act authorized the Commissioners to take over land for the purpose. The land was acquired and transferred to them by the Royal Dublin Society. But from that hour to the present no building had been erected. He would be obliged to the Vice President if he would give some reason why so long a time had been allowed to elapse without the building being erected. He might mention that a distinguished artist had left to the Art Museum in the City of Dublin a very valuable collection of models, and there was no place to put them into.

said, he had a great deal of sympathy with Irish art; and when he went to Dublin he would do everything possible to arrive at the solution of the question, and to put the buildings in good trim. At the same time, he reminded the hon. Member (Mr. Foley) that the Science and Art Vote for Ireland was by no means contemptible, as it amounted to£7,000. The Department would do its best to bring about a good understanding with the Royal Dublin Society.

said, the authorities at the British Museum had already, to a great extent, anticipated the wishes of the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Slagg).

said, he was very happy to hear the assurance held out to Irish Members that the subject of art education in Ireland would receive special attention at the hands of Her Majesty's Government; but he hoped that, in reorganizing the system, care would be taken to re-organize it specially and particularly upon an Irish national basis. Every effort in the past to bring this about had been thwarted by the Government of the day. However, he did not wish to go into that question, having full confidence in the promises made to Irish Members by the right hon. Gentleman. But he desired to ask the Vice President of the Council if he could give any answer to the question of the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. A. O'Connor) as to the prospect of facilitating the entrance of the working classes inside museums and similar places on Sundays. After all, it was not very often that working men could leave the places where they got their livelihood, in order to refine their minds by the contemplation of the marvels of art. He hoped, therefore, he was not intrusive in pressing the right hon. Gentleman for an answer upon this subject.

said, he wished to ask whether, in the future, the Education Code would provide for agricultural teaching? He believed that a school of agriculture formed part of the Science and Art Department at South Kensington. He believed that one of the main objections to the agricultural section was the difficulty of instructing the teachers of schools in the simple elements of agricultural and farming operations. While he agreed with the importance of the other subjects, it was equally important to instruct our agricultural population in the subjects connected with their calling; and now, especially, to give them some intelligent ideas upon the question of agricultural machinery.

said, he would remind the hon. Member that the Education Vote had disposed of the question referred to by him. With regard to the inquiry of the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell), he thought the hon. Member must be aware that the opening of museums on Sundays was not at the disposal of the Department over which he presided. It, undoubtedly, rested with the Members of the House of Commons, and could only be settled by a vote of the House. He trusted that the Committee would now agree to the Vote being taken.

said, he understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that the question of opening museums on Sundays was entirely a matter for the House of Commons; but he did not understand that the Government had handed over all their functions to the Members. According to his view, it was for the Government to propose a measure, which the House would reject or accept as it thought fit. The question was one which excited a great deal of interest, and they were entitled to an answer from the right hon. Gentleman upon the subject. He was obliged to remark I that every Minister was ready to tell the House what the Department thought upon the various questions raised; but the House did not want to know what was thought by any Department. Hon. Members were now asking what the Government thought, and whether they intended to make a proposal to the House with respect to the opening of museums on Sundays.

said, he found on page 298, section 3, building grants which were estimated for this year at the sum of £2,600. He had found also that in a former Estimate the Committee were asked for £2,500—that was to say, for the year 1878; but of that sum only £326 had been spent in erecting buildings for the purposes of art. Under the circumstances, he could not see why £2,600 was asked for in the present Estimates, seeing that the Department must have a large surplus of the former Vote in hand which they ought to have used, but which they did not use after the money was obtained. Further on, under section B, he found, in connection with South Kensington Museum, that the sum of £9,300 was charged for police. He did not know whether the police formed any particular branch of art, and he was not aware that the people of England were so light-fingered as to require such a large body of police to protect the specimens of art at South Kensington. Therefore, he would like to receive an explanation of these items; and particularly as to why the Department was asking for £2,600, under section B, without having shown that they had used the money asked for before.

said, he had some few things of value on deposit at Kensington, and he felt very grateful for the presence of the police at the Museum. No doubt, in the country of which the hon. Member for Ennis (Mr. Finigan) was a distinguished Representative there would be no necessity for such precautions; but in prosaic England the case was different. If it were not for the presence of the police at the Museum, he thought the Loan Collection would not be so extensive as it was.

said, he rose to ask a question with reference to the Vote for Scientific Research. He observed two items under this head, one of £4,000 for the Royal Society Government und Committee, and another of £500 for Solar Physics. He would be glad to know whether it was part of the duty of the Department to carry out scientific researches in the latter branch? There was a good deal of obscurity hanging about the first item.

said, that they voted £118,000 for the British Museum Library, whereas only £2,000 was voted for the National Library for Ireland. That was entirely an insufficient sum, and the consequence was that what was called the National Library of Ireland was a disgrace to Ireland, and most inconvenient to every student in the City of Dublin. He found in the Vote that the Chief Librarian at the British Museum received £1,200 salary, and that the Librarians under him received about £200 each. Altogether, the Assistant Librarians in the British Museum received £750. On the other hand, at the National Library in Ireland he found the Librarian at a salary of not more than half of what was received by the Chief Librarian in the English Library. He did not propose to detain the Committee many moments upon this matter; but he thought the question could be very properly raised upon the Vote for the British Museum. He should merely say that if the right hon. Gentleman was not prepared to give a satisfactory answer, or some promise to make an addition to the National Library of Ireland, he should oppose the Vote for the British Museum, inasmuch as he considered it unjust that so much should be spent in London and so little upon the National Library for Ireland.

said, that the whole question of the National Library for Ireland had now come under the consideration of the Science and Art Department. They hoped to deal with it by their personal inspection and observation as soon as possible. As to giving an assurance that the Librarians at the Dublin Library should be paid at the same rate as the Librarians at the British Museum, he could not do so, and he did not think it a reasonable thing to ask. The hon. Gentleman well knew that the duties devolving upon Librarians at the British Museum, and the importance of their position, made a very considerable difference between, the two offices. If the Librarian at the British Museum was paid too much he (Mr. Mundella) was not responsible, for it was not in his Department, and he had nothing to do with the British Museum, which was under the control of the Trustees. The question had been asked him whether he would definitely state if the Government was prepared to open museums on Sundays? He could only say that this was the first time the question had been asked. He did not know that the question would be asked, and he thought that the proper course would be to put a Notice on the Paper, and to ask the responsible Minister what proposition he had to make on the subject. He was not prepared, on his own responsibility, to undertake that the Government would consider any proposition on the subject. The hon. Member for Ennis (Mr. Finigan) had put a question to him with regard to the building grant. Those were grants for building Science and Art Schools, and if the local efforts were not successful, and subscriptions were not raised, the result was that the grants lapsed, and went back to the Treasury. That was what happened last year.

said, that with respect to investigation in solar physics, he did not wish to deprecate any investigation that would have a practical result; but he did think that it was very doubtful whether these investigations would have any practical effect whatever. It appeared to him that they ought not to find money for merely curious or interesting scientific experiments, unless it could be shown that they would have a practical result. He had not yet heard any explanation with regard to this matter.

said, that the Government had not made up their minds with regard to this subject. The Government had not made up their minds upon anything yet; they were waiting to see the effect of public enthusiasm. If sufficient agitation was got up, he had no doubt that the Government would be perfectly ready to open the museums. He had no doubt that some explanation would be given with regard to the question of solar physics. Perhaps the Government did not know what solar physics were. At all events, the Government had not made up its mind upon the subject. If the hon. Member pressed this matter he was sure that they would never get progress reported, so convinced was he that the right hon. Gentleman would not answer the question on solar physics.

said, that, in his opinion, the Estimates were very satisfactory, and it should be remembered that the Government had only recently come into Office. He was very glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President that the question of the National Museum at Dublin was to be considered. He trusted that he would hold out a hope to the Committee that he would consider the question whether a better mode of developing training in science and art, in the more distant parts of Ireland, could not be adopted. South Kensington Museum did a certain amount of work in Ireland; but it required a fresh centre in Dublin to study the institution of science and art in Ireland. They could not develop science and art properly in the elementary schools unless the teachers themselves knew something about science and art. At the present time the Government managed the training schools in such a way that a teacher was unable to learn it in those schools. He thought that it would be found that the spread of science and art in the elementary schools of Ireland was very much connected with the question of the training schools in Ireland. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would see to the special schools in Dublin, and would also consider the question of developing science and art in the elementary schools.

said, that for a very considerable number of years past a grant of £1,000 had been made by the country to be administered by the Royal Society in scientific investigations. That money was not given to the Royal Society; but it was spent by it in various scientific researches, which were of much value. It was found that they could very well spend a much larger sum than £1,000, and they recommended that it should be increased to £5,000. It was then thought undesirable that the money should be under the exclusive control of the Committee of the Royal Society. When an additional £4,000 was granted it was subject to the control, partly of the Royal Society and partly of the Presidents of the other learned Societies. This was still an experiment; but he thought that scientific men would agree with him in thinking that the results which they had derived, and which, they would be likely to derive, were extremely valuable. With regard to the question of solar physics, the results had proved to be of inestimable practical value. They had not yet seen the result of the money which had been granted this year; but he had no doubt that it would be found that the researches made were of great practical utility.

said, that he was in favour of spending money in science. He should like to have some information as to the manner in which this £5,000 was spent. Who directed these experiments? He understood from the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock) that the Royal Society did not have the exclusive management of this money, and he should like to know whether it was the Science and Art Department which controlled the expenditure of this grant?

said, that these Votes were given in fulfilment of the engagements made by the late Government. £4,000 was expended by the advice of the Committee of Members of the Royal Society, and the Presidents of the various scientific bodies recommended by the Royal Society. Theresearchesin solar physics were conducted by Mr. Lockyer, with the aid of the Royal Society. They were directed to practical purposes, and there had recently been observations made at the Himalayas. He thought that the country could very well afford to spend £5,000 on scientific purposes. As it was, the country did not spend too much on science and art. He should like to say a few words in respect to the speech of the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Slagg). He brought forward a practical suggestion, that duplicates of works of art should be produced, especially those that were in the British Museum. He was sorry that the Chairman of the British Museum was not present, for he agreed with the hon. Member in thinking that this was very desirable. So far as he was concerned, he should do his very utmost to circulate throughout the Provinces the best specimens of art he could obtain from South Kensington. He believed that South Kensington was doing an invaluable work in the way of circulating specimens of works of art throughout the country. It would be found that in many Galleries there were cases of articles now being exhibited at Manchester, Sheffield, York, and other places, which had come from South Kensington. Their organization throughout the country was still being improved. If the British Museum would second their efforts, he thought they might really do a valuable work. The hon. Member's speech was a most useful and practical one, and he could wish that it had been made at a time in the evening when it could have been better reported. So far as he was concerned, he did not think that the country spent enough on science and art. He believed that South Kensington was doing a useful and practical work, and that every farthing there was well and economically spent. He did not think that the people of this country would grudge a little money spent on science and art.

said, that he wished to say a single word on behalf of Scotland. They had heard much of the claims of Ireland to additional Votes for public purposes, and he did not object to the Representatives from Ireland asking for Dublin all they could get; but he thought the Representatives for Scotland might reasonably ask something, too. Under this head of the Estimates, Ireland received £18,601; whereas Scotland received only £10,191—an unfair proportion, whether the respective populations of the two countries, or their contributions to National Revenue, were considered. As the Vice President of the Council showed a disposition to listen favourably to the appeals of Irish Members, he (Mr. Dick-Peddie) hoped he would listen favourably to those of Scotland also. Hon. Members had spoken of the disadvantages under which Dublin laboured in respect of its National Library; but he wished to point out that Scotland was unjustly treated in several matters. He might draw attention to the fact that in Scotland they had no Vote for a Library, nor for a Royal College of Science, nor for the Royal Academy, nor for Zoological Gardens—for all of which Ireland received grants. Scotland was as much entitled to money for these purposes as Ireland. There was one matter in which Scotland had been espe- pecially badly treated. The Industrial Museum in Edinburgh, was allowed by the Government to remain in an unfinished state. The building was begun under an arrangement with the City of Edinburgh, by which the City agreed to form a street of a given width, and at great expense, on condition that Government should erect the Museum in that street. But the building was left unfinished. Year after year money to complete it was promised, but the promise had not been fulfilled. The City had carried out its part of the bargain, but the Government had failed on its side. He trusted that during the Recess the Government would see its way to fulfil the promise which it had made.

said, that he was very glad to accept the assurance of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President that every inquiry would be made with respect to the Institution in Dublin. With regard to the question alluded to by the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. A. O'Connor), he understood that the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock) had given every explanation. Formerly, £1,000 was paid for these scientific investigations; and that was then supplemented by another £4,000. The hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) bad spoken a good deal about solar physics. It seemed to him that the hon. Member should have referred to the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) for information on this point, as he was in Office at the time the grant was made.

Question put, and agreed to .

(3.) £214,203, to complete the sum for Public Education, Scotland.

Vote agreed to .

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £10,774, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1881, for the Salaries and Expenses of the National Gallery."

said, that he saw that £10,000 was charged in this Vote for the purpose of purchasing pictures. He should like to ask the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury what were the arrangements which were made by the National Gallery with regard to the purchase of pictures? If he were correctly informed, some few years ago the consent of the Treasury was, after much persuasion on the part of the National Gallery, given to the purchase of the picture of Cardinal Savelli, which involved an amount in excess of the sum voted. That consent was given, on the understanding that the case should not occcur again. He should like to ask what security there was that the practice would not become a system?

said, this picture was purchased on the distinct understanding with the vendor that it was to be paid for by yearly instalments, one of which was paid last year and one this year. The question came before the Public Accounts Committee, and they recommended that care should be taken whenever this kind of transaction took place, and that full information should be given with regard to it. Whenever an arrangement was made by which the full cost of the picture was not paid in any one year, then full information was given to the Treasury.

said, that, on this Vote for the National Gallery, they ought to have some assurance that these Galleries would be open on those days when the greater part of the people were able to go to them. There was a tone of reproach about the answer given him by the right hon. Gentleman on a former Vote, when he referred to the subject of opening museums on Sundays, which he thought he did not deserve. It was quite true that it was only right for the Government, upon certain questions, to wait for public opinion; but he was very much mistaken if the overwhelming mass of public opinion was not in favour of the opening of museums and galleries on Sundays. He ventured to think that he was in no way unduly occupying the time of the Committee in bringing this question to their notice. He thought that a popular Government ought to throw its enormous weight on the scale of popular education in its highest, best sense, which would be effected by placing the national treasures at the disposal of the nation at such times as they could best make use of them.

said, that he wished to ask the noble Lord the Se- cretary to the Treasury a question with regard to the unexpected money voted for these Galleries. At present, he believed, it was the custom if the money were not expended to pay it back to the Treasury. He should like to know whether it would be possible to vary that rule with respect to the National Gallery? Every year they were tempted to dispose of their money, whether they wished to buy pictures or not. If they were allowed to keep it they might hold their hand, and wait until some really first-rate picture was in the market. Would it not be possible to relax the Treasury rule, so as to give the National Gallery more freedom?

said, that he might state, as a Trustee of an analogous Institution—the National Portrait Gallery—that it would be a very great advantage if the suggestion of the hon. Member were adopted. At present, there was a temptation on the part of all similarly placed Bodies to give the preference to buying more when the value of the article was not first-rate, rather than have to recoup; but if the money were allowed to be kept till the next year, opportunity would be given to wait till they could buy something very superior.

said, he wished to ask whether there was any intention to give further facilities to the public for visiting the National Gallery? It would be in the recollection of the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury that, in consequence of a Question put some little time ago by himself to the Commissioner of Works, the Trustees of the National Gallery came to the conclusion that it might be desirable to give further facilities to the public, leaving the moot question of opening the Gallery on Sundays undecided for the present. They also thought that the Gallery might be open throughout the year, instead of being closed for several weeks, as it was at present. He believed the Trustees came to the conclusion that they might, by making some different arrangements, do away with the closing of the Gallery for four weeks in the autumn. At present, it was only open for four days in the week, the other two days being given up to students. It was not long since that he had the pleasure of presenting a Petition to the House, which was signed by a large majority of persons engaged in copying in the National Gallery, in favour of admitting the public on those days in which they were engaged in copying. The Petitioners stated distinctly that, so far from the presence of visitors being any inconvenience to them in their operation of copying, it would tend greatly to their advantage, inasmuch as it would bring the public and those who had their copies to dispose of together. They were also convinced that no damage would accrue to the works of art in the Gallery. He would also point out that the pictures on the line were protected by glass, so that the only damage would be, perhaps, the upsetting of an easel, from which, he thought, no damage was to be apprehended. He would be glad to hear that the subject was under consideration by the Government; and that, before the Recess, some regulation might be framed which would give the public the facilities which he thought they had a perfect right to demand.

said, he trusted the Secretary to the Treasury would not yield to the suggestion of not handing over surpluses, but adhere to the wholesome rule of returning to the Treasury any unexpended balances he might have in hand. He hoped those intrusted with the expenditure on the National Gallery would not follow the rule advocated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Beresford Hope). He had no reason to suppose they did so. But the remarks made in the Committee would probably make them look carefully on what they purchased, and understand that an account would be required from the Department to which those Votes were given, and that it was expected the money would be expended on objects worthy of the National Collection.

said, they were morally bound to spend a certain sum of money every year, in order to do their duty to the public. The money, with a sufficient amount of elasticity, was now put into the hands of persons who had no other than an artistic interest in its expenditure. He thought a little give and take would enable the Trustees, both of the National Gallery and the Portrait Gallery, to buy much more important works, and thus really exercise economy, as they desired to do. No one meant that they were arbitrarily and capriciously to keep money back. If they got the permission, it must be with, the leave of the Treasury, and, he would add, with the special leave of the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn).

said, he did not think the question of opening the National Gallery on Sundays was one which the Committee should debate. It would be raised by Motion at the proper time, when he wished to enter his protest against the views brought before the House with reference to this subject.

said, he thought the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) was more devoted to economy than conversant with art. He could state, from his own personal knowledge, that the National Gallery was often at a disadvantage, as compared with other Institutions of foreign countries, and private purchasers, because they knew that there was this limit to its expenditure. He thought the suggestion of the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Lyulph Stanley) was worth consideration by the Treasury; because we might, then, be in a position to buy when foreign countries were not in a position to do so. At present, the country was at a great disadvantage, because sellers were, as a rule, unwilling to take payments by instalments.

said, he ventured to agree with the opinions expressed by the hon, Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn). He believed if power were given to any public body, like the Trustees of the National Gallery, to retain money for the purpose of buying paintings, it would happen that the dealers in pictures would know that they had a certain sum in their possession, and that they were not to be treated as ordinary buyers. He believed that the House, upon any great occasion, would never refuse to give the sum necessary to be paid for what was recognized as a work to be bought for the country. But if power were given to the Trustees of the National Gallery to get together money for that purpose, they would never be in a position to treat successfully with the picture dealers. The hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. R. N. Fowler), it appeared, objected to the observations of the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) with reference to the question of opening the museums to the public on Sundays. But the observations of the hon. Member for Dungarvan were important; and if the point of opening the museums was to be carried, it would not be by a strained Motion in that House, which would be debated for an hour and a-half, as it had been each year, a few hon. Members making the same set-speeches, and then everything being forgotten, If they meant to succeed, it was upon every legitimate occasion like the present, when the Committee were discussing the question of payment for the National Gallery, that the question should be raised. They certainly had to consider the convenience of the people who had to pay for these places. He believed he was right in saying that in Ireland the people were allowed to go into the galleries on Sundays; and, that being the case, he asked any hon. Member from Ireland what it had resulted in? There had been no disturbances; but, on the contrary, there had been the greatest possible improvement in the morals of the people. He thought he was entitled to call the attention of English and Scotch Members to what had resulted from that course being adopted in Ireland, and to say that if the same course was pursued in England it would bring about a great improvement in the morals of the people.

said, he was not disposed to allow this Vote to pass without eliciting from the Government an opinion as to the merits, or the reverse, of opening the national museums on Sundays. He did not agree with the remark of the hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. R. N. Fowler) that this was not the proper opportunity for raising this question. It must be remembered that the Session had very nearly closed, and it might be impossible for any hon. Member to raise the question, or find an opportunity of discussing it in a proper manner. He observed the Home Secretary in his place; and he asked the right hon. and learned Gentleman, as he took part in a former discussion on this subject, and, as he believed, supported the Motion for opening the museums on Sunday, whether it would be convenient to him to state the views of the Government? If the Home Secretary was not prepared at that moment to do so, he should be inclined to ask the Committee to agree to a Motion to report Progress. These Collections of Art were formed by the taxes laid upon the people, and the labouring classes were great contributors in that respect. The only opportunities they had for studying these works of art was on Sundays; and he had always been of opinion that there was no solid argument against their being excluded on those days.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—( Lord Randolph Churchill. )

said, he hoped the noble Lord would not press his Motion to a division, because the question of opening the Museums and National Gallery on Sundays would be much better discussed on the Motion of the noble Lord the Member for Chichester (Lord Henry Lennox), which stood upon the Paper. The question was one which could not be decided offhand; and it was one on which, he agreed, the Representatives of the people ought to decide. It had been decided, on a former occasion, by a very large majority of the House, that the museums should not be opened on Sundays; and he thought it was not asking too much to be allowed more time for the consideration of this important matter. With regard to the order in which these Votes were taken, he agreed that it was desirable that they should be taken in such a manner as would leave no doubt in the minds of hon. Members as to the particular Vote before the Committee. But he begged to say that due Notice was always given of the Votes to be taken. There was, he believed, a good deal to be said on both sides upon the question of handing over the unexpended balances to the Exchequer. But the practice was to proceed strictly in accordance with the provisions of the Appropriation Act. There had been strong pressure brought to bear in favour of relaxing this rule, and of moving Supplementary Votes for the present purposes; and at that moment he was not sure they would be able to resist the pressure which had been put upon the Government to move a Supplementary Vote for the National Portrait Gallery. In the financial management which had characterized the last few years, the existing rule gave control over the persons intrusted with the money. Before it came into force no one could tell exactly how the matter stood; but since its application it was absolutely impossible that 1 s . could be expended without the knowledge of Parliament. With respect to the question raised by the hon. Member for Middlesex (Mr. Coope) as to the opening of the National Gallery during the greater part of the year, he was able to inform him that the Treasury had sanctioned such an addition to the expenditure as would enable the Gallery to be open to the public every month except one week in the year. The Trustees and Directors had been somewhat alarmed at the suggestion of opening it on students' days, owing to the great numbers who would frequent the Gallery, from which they anticipated damage might arise. The system, however, which had been in operation at South Kensington, of making a small charge to prevent overcrowding, had worked admirably, and the same thing had been proposed to the Trustees of the National Gallery. The suggestion was then under consideration by the Trustees, and he hoped that arrangements would be made of a satisfactory character. He would observe, with respect to the further question of appropriation accounts and the handing over of unexpended balances, that this rule had not been allowed to stand in the way when any great property was to be obtained. For instance, when the Peel Gallery was for sale, a large sum was at once granted by the House.

said, his noble Friend who had just sat down had stated that a good deal could be said on both sides of the question of allowing the Vote to accumulate; but he confined himself to the argument which could be alleged in favour of not allowing the Vote to stand over, the only argument brought forward by him being that by this means Parliament obtained greater control over the money. In the particular case of the National Gallery, however, he (Mr. A. J. Balfour) could not see what control Parliament would gain by it. Parliament had now no control whatever. The Treasury were entirely the humble servants of the Trustees in this matter. They gave a certain sum every year to the Trustees, who spent it exactly as they liked without any Parliamentary control. The question before the Committee was, Would the Trustees spend the money more for the advantage of the public, if they received a fixed sum, than they would if they knew they would lose nothing by not spending the whole of their money in the course of the year? It seemed to him they would spend the money better if they had that freedom given to them, while Parliament would lose no control worth mentioning.

said, he had had no idea this question of opening the National Gallery would come before the Committee. From the number of Petitions placed in his hands, he was bound to say that he entirely dissented from the proposal which had been made, and he hoped the Government would not agree to it. He did not think there was any harm in looking at pictures on Sundays. But he believed that if once the rule now in force was broken through, and any one institution allowed to be open on Sundays, it would not be possible again to close the doors. Every place of entertainment would shortly be open on the Day of Best, ordinary employments would soon follow, and the only day on which labourers throughout the country could recruit their health would be taken from them. It would be the greatest curse to the labourers of the country that such a thing should take place.

said, there was one expedient by which the difficulty with regard to the unexpended balances could be easily got over. If the Trustees found that they could not expend with advantage £1,000 or £2,000 in the course of any particular year they would, of course, have to pay the amount into the Exchequer under the Appropriation Act. But if Government inserted it again in the Estimates of the next year, the Trustees would be secure of having the full amount intended for them, and there would be no temptation to spend it merely because they had it in hand.

said, he did not propose to press his Motion to report Progress, which he asked permission to withdraw; but he hoped the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury would endeavour to fix a day on which the noble Lord the Member for Chichester (Lord Henry Lennox) could bring on his Motion with reference to the opening of the Museums on Sundays.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn .

Original Question put, and agreed to .

(5.) £1,490, to complete the sum for the National Portrait Gallery.

said, that he must ask leave of the Committee to bring forward a question with reference to the National Portrait Gallery. As hon. Members who were present in the last Parliament must recollect, the National Portrait Gallery was two years ago placed, so far as accommodation went, in a much more satisfactory position than before. The accommodation for it before that time was miserably inadequate. At the present time, so far as wall space went, it was sufficient; but the buildings in which the Gallery was lodged were of the most temporary and trumpery character. They were mere wooden sheds, covered up by canvas or other material. A valuable collection of pictures, worth £40,000 or £50,000, was lodged in mere shanties, patched up out of the refreshment buildings of the Exhibition of 1862. Worse than that, the access to the building was by a passage, internally mean and shabby in appearance to everyone who went along it. The outside was ten thousand times worse, run up with rotting clap boards, and tottering on wooden props, while lying upon the ground all round were festering heaps of rotten stuff and garbage of every description. There was a wilderness of rotten canvas about, which would make a perfect bon-fire ready for any mischievous boy playing with lucifers, or idle waiter pitching away his cigar end. This approach to the National Portrait Gallery, opened by a side-entrance into these back slums of the inferior portions of South Kensington, as he had attempted to describe, which were now used for the odds and ends of the noble Lord opposite (Lord Frederick Cavendish). On a day like this—Bank Holiday—any person who went there might light his pipe or cigar carelessly outside, and a single match thrown into that miserable congerie of ricketty buildings of wood and canvas would produce a conflagration which there was nothing to stop. The utmost zeal of the firemen would be unable to rescue a single work of art. It was most earnestly, and most seriously, that he pressed this matter upon the attention of the Treasury. It was not a matter as to which the noble Lord could say there were two sides. There was only one side to this question—it was, that these pictures were lodged in a place wretched, bare, and decked for a burnt sacrifice. It was a shame that more precautions were not taken to secure a collection, which it was the natural duty of the Treasury to take care should be properly lodged.

said, that he thought his right hon. Friend had somewhat damaged his case by the admissions made by him a little earlier in the discussion. He was afraid, however, that he had something of a case notwithstanding. He was sorry to say that he should be obliged before many weeks to ask the House for a small Supplementary Vote, in order to secure the pictures in the National Portrait Gallery from fire. He did not propose to take any steps to provide a more magnificent Gallery; but he thought they were bound to see that the pictures of that Gallery were safe, and, for that reason, they ought to take proper precautions.

Vote agreed to .

Resolutions to be reported.

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £7,050, he granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending the 31st day of March 1881, for Grants in Aid of the Expenditure of certain Learned Societies in Great Britain and Ireland."

said, that he had a Notice of Motion upon a matter in connection with this Vote which it was impossible to do justice to at that hour. It was with regard to these meteorological Reports; and, as the question raised was a large one, he hoped that the noble Lord would consider it desirable then to report Progress.

said, that he had no doubt that this Vote was originally one for the Learned Societies; but, at present, the great bulk of the money was given, not to the Learned Societies, but for scientific investigations. He could not but think that it would be a great advantage if all the grants for scientific investigation were got together under one Vote. It would be for the convenience of everyone that that should be done. Scientific men were very jealous of money being given to other than their own Societies, and it was really misleading to continue this Vote under the present head.

said, that the suggestion of the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London was well worthy of consideration. He must, however, be well aware that the Votes were administered by more than one Department. Unless they were prepared to take away the administration of this Vote from the Science and Art Department, the alteration he proposed could not be adopted. There was this important difference between the Vote for Scientific Researches and this Vote—that the Science and Art Vote was entirely expended on scientific subjects, but that this Vote was made to Learned Societies. The Vote to the various Societies were simply amounts given to them for the purpose of scientific investigation. The question, however, which the hon. Baronet (Sir John Lubbock) raised was an important one, and he had a statement to make which he hoped would not be unsatisfactory. They had made so little progress that evening, that he hoped they would be allowed to go on.

said, that having been sitting there since 6 o'clock it was exceedingly hard work to be kept there till past 2 o'clock in the morning. It was not as if it occurred now and then; but this happened two or three times a week. He hoped that the noble Lord would not press the Committee to proceed with the discussion at that time.

said, that the noble Lord was under the impression that the £1,000 was granted to the Royal Society for its own purposes. It was nothing of the kind—it was only a grant administered by the Royal Society for certain purposes. It had nothing to do with the expenses of the Society itself.

said, that he agreed with his hon. Friend that that Vote was not applied for the purposes of the Society, but was only a grant administered by it.

said, that he hoped that the noble Lord would not think him unreasonable if he pressed his request for the adjournment. Hon. Members had expressed to him their anxiety to take part in the debate upon the Meteorological Vote, and he hoped that the noble Lord would not press it on at an hour when they were away. Would it be convenient for the noble Lord to take any other Vote?

said, that he was afraid they must report Progress, as he certainly did think that it was unreasonable to go on at that hour. He would move that Progress be reported.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do now report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—( Lord Frederick Cavendish. )

Motion agreed to .

Resolutions to be reported To-morrow , at Two of the clock;

Committee also report Progress; to sit again upon Wednesday .

said, that he had to ask the House to allow this Bill to be re-committed. It would be in the recollection of the House that it was re-committed for the purpose of making certain formal Amendments. One of those formal Amendments had been found to have rather a wider effect than was intended. It had been objected to by certain hon. Members; and as it was introduced on the understanding that only verbal Amendments would be inserted, he felt himself compelled to move that the Bill be re-committed as regarded Clause 41.

Order for Third Reading discharged .

Bill re-committed , in respect of Clause 41.

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Clause 41 (Alteration of the duties on certain excise licences).

Amendment proposed, in page 15, line 3, after "person," to insert "in England or Ireland."—( Lord Frederick Cavendish. )

Amendment agreed to .

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do now report this Bill, as amended, to the House."

said, that there was another clause in the Bill, that relating to Joint Stock Companies, to which he desired to move an Amendment.

said, that the Bill had only been re-committed for a particular purpose, and the Amendment of the hon. Member could not be considered.

Question put, and agreed to .

Bill, as amended, reported to the House.

Bill considered on Report.

Bill read the third time, and passed , with an amended Short Title and Title.

said, that he had an Amendment to propose on this clause. He proposed, in page 24, line 41, after the word "rectifier," to insert "or any person licensed to sell not less than three gallons of spirits." He proposed to make three Amendments to this clause, the object of which was to enable the British merchant to have the same advantages as the foreign manufacturer had. A large quantity of brandy was now imported into this country, containing about 5 per cent of sugar, which had the effect of making it more palatable to the consumer. But the English merchant was not entitled to put that 5 pet cent of sugar into any brandy that he might have. The object of his Amendment was to enable owners of brandy in bond to add to it any saccharine matter, in order to give it the flavour of brandy coming from abroad. The Amendment was virtually in extension of freedom of trade, so as to enable the English dealer to compete with his foreign rival. There was another alteration with regard to the addition of medicinal or essential oils. A very large trade was at present carried on in scents. The British merchant was put in this difficult position—that he could not add these medicinal, or foreign, or essential oils, although the foreign manufacturer could. He wished to secure to the English merchant the same power with regard to scents as was possessed by the foreign merchant. The object of the Amendment was, in fact, to enable him to carry on his trade as the foreigner was now able to do.

Amendment moved , in page 24, line 41, after "rectifier," to insert the words" or any person licensed to sell not less than three gallons of spirits."—( Mr. Warton. )

said, that, so far as he was able to judge, the Amendment of the hon. Member would be worthy of consideration if this were a Bill to make any alteration in the law. But this Bill was being passed through Committee on the distinct understanding that it was only a Consolidation Bill, and, therefore, he must ask the Committee to reject the Amendment of the hon. Member.

said, that the Bill was entitled "one to consolidate and amend the law with regard to spirits." It was not simply a Consolidation Bill. He thought what had been said by the noble Lord was hardly a reason against his Amendment.

Amendment negatived .

said, that he was supported in this question by a large body of the trade. It was a matter well worthy of consideration, and he did not think there was any argument against it.

said, that if the hon. Member would put his Amendment on the Paper, and favour him with the print it, it should be considered.

Remaining clauses agreed to .

Schedules agreed to .

House resumed .

Bill reported : as amended, to be considered upon Thursday .

in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, it was the same as the last Census Bill, with the exception that the superintendents were to be appointed by the Lord Lieutenant. That was a matter on which he believed there was some difference of opinion; and he would, after the second reading, put off the Committee for at least a week, in order that it might be fully considered by the Government.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—( Mr. W. E. Forster. )

said, the right hon. Gentleman had given ample time for the consideration of Amendments, and he saw no objection to his proposal. He thought it was a convenient arrangement to postpone the Committee.

said, it would not be well to agree to the second reading unless the Government gave an assurance that the interests of Catholics would be safeguarded. The present arrangement of the Government was to confine the superintendence to a gentleman of the Protestant creed. There was a very considerable feeling upon the subject in Ireland; and as it was likely that religious questions would largely occupy the attention of the House in coming years, the Catholics of Ireland had a perfect right to call upon the Government to appoint a Catholic gentleman to a share in the direction of this Census. Unless he received a more explicit assurance on this point, he would divide the House against the Motion.

said, it might be well to postpone the second reading of the Bill. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman would not press it on the House without giving full time for discussion.

said, a large number of the Irish Members had gone home, not expecting that the Bill would be brought on. He knew there was a strong feeling as to certain points in the Bill of a religious character, and, therefore, the more to be respected. The Chief Secretary knew that religious questions frequently excited in this country a great deal of prejudice and passion, which it was not always safe to run counter to. He trusted he would not attempt at that hour to force on the Bill.

Question put.

The House divided :—Ayes 61; Noes 10: Majority 51.—(Div. List, No. 89.)

Main Question put, and agreed to .

Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

said, he had been asked to bring before the House, for educational and other purposes, on behalf of the Federation of Celtic Associations of Scotland, the Committee of the Free Church of Scotland in the Highlands, both largely representative Bodies, as well as by others, a request that instructions should be given to specify in the Census Papers those persons who could speak the Gaelic language alone, and those who could speak English and Gaelic. There was a precedent for this in the Irish Census of 1861, and the information then obtained was very satisfactory. As he spoke on behalf of a peaceable and orderly people, who seldom obtruded their wishes on the House, he trusted that the mere additional expense, which was the only possible objection to his request, would not stand in the way.

said, he could not pledge himself at that moment; but the matter would receive every consideration.

Motion agreed to .

Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.