210 LIFE AND EXPERIENCES CHAP. 



County Borough Councils for the purpose of the 

 Technical Instruction Act, coupled with an intimation 

 that charges might in the future be placed upon them 

 for secondary education. On August ist in the same 

 year Mr. Arthur Acland moved an amendment to the 

 effect that a county or county borough might con- 

 tribute half of the new grant for technical education, 

 and might apply the rest, under the Endowed Schools 

 Act, to purposes of secondary education. The Gov- 

 ernment accepted the first part of Mr. Acland's 

 amendment, but opposed the second, which was with- 

 drawn on the understanding that the whole and not 

 only a moiety of the residue should be applicable to 

 technical education. 



The educational importance of the Act of 1889 can 

 hardly be over-estimated, inasmuch as it provided the 

 machinery by which the local authorities were enabled 

 to utilise the large sum of money under the Local 

 Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act of 1890, which, 

 as I have explained, became available for the purposes 

 of technical instruction. The very fact of the alloca- 

 tion by Parliament of a sum of about three-quarters of 

 a million to technical education an event unparal- 

 leled in our financial history is of itself a proof of the 

 real appreciation of the necessity of promoting the 

 industrial equipment of our people. A further proof 

 of this appreciation is shown by the way in which the 

 local authorities at once availed themselves of the 

 opportunities thus presented, for although the applica- 

 tion of the funds to educational purposes was not 

 obligatory, yet it was only in a few cases that the 

 money was used for the relief of rates. No sooner, 

 however, had the local authorities got to work, than it 

 became clear that the Act of 1889 was deficient in 

 several particulars. Of these the most important were, 



