Revieic of Kevieics. Il9lv3. EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS. 



39 



have followed the Act of 1902 will then, 

 we hope, be overtaken before another 

 generation suffers. Room must also be 

 made for "half-timers" to attend full 

 time " ; each with a school seat entirely 

 his own. These are big holes to fill, 

 and the sums required are much larger 

 than will be needed for the handsome 

 dole to London University, a new pro- 

 vision for training secondary teachers, 

 more aid for medical inspection, school 

 meals, and matters of that kind. A 

 large new grant was offered as the price 

 of Mr. Birrell's Bill, seven years ago, 

 and since then the actual grants paid 

 have been raided for other purposes ; 

 while educational finance has been badly 

 muddled both by the national and the 

 local authorities. Now the time has come 

 when, Bill or no Bill, a " large and sub- 

 stantial additional sum " is urgently 

 needed. " How much do you want ?" 

 one educator was asked. " The cost of 

 a Dreadnought annuall)," was the 

 answer. 



THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY. 



As for the religious difficulty, Mr. 

 Pease properly faces it as a practical 

 problem in education. It is no longer to 

 be the duty of an education authority 

 to force Nonconformist children into 

 church schools, or I'ice versa. If any 

 parent desire the freer atmosphere 

 •of a public school, under local public 

 management, the public authority will 

 provide the accommodation But, ex- 

 cept for the loss of these unwilling 

 scholars, the voluntary school, of all 

 denominations, is not to be interfered 

 with. As the child passes from one 

 school to the other, the grievances 

 against private denominational control 

 disappear. In a great many cases, the 



deserted school will disappear also. In 

 the rural districts, a generous system of 

 conveying the scholars some little dis- 

 tance whenever necessary is foreshad- 

 owed in Mr. Pease's suggestion that 

 " the school shall be brought to the child, 

 or the child to the school." All this fits 

 in with the urgent demands of rural 

 educational reformers for central schools 

 serving several villages, and large 

 enough to be efficient, in place of a mass 

 of little schools. 



NO BILL YET. 



The weak point of Mr. Pease's posi- 

 tion is that nearly all his proposals are 

 not yet embodied in a Bill. He has 

 done little more than brilliantly repeat 

 the general terms of Lord Haldane's 

 and Lord Crewe's monitions. But it is 

 clear that he means to repeal the prohi- 

 bition against building grants in the Act 

 of 1870, and the intolerable charge on 

 the parishes m Section 18 of the Act of 

 1902, and that he will interfere slightly 

 with the constitution of the Local Auth- 

 orities as at present established. But 

 even these reforms depend much on the 

 form in which they are put before the 

 Legislature. In other matters, the draft- 

 ing of Board of Education Bills in 

 recent years has been disastrous from a 

 Liberal point of view. Tricky schedules, 

 sly repeals, disingenuous clauses, have 

 twisted the best intentions of Liberal 

 Cabinets into instruments of mere 

 bureaucracy. The personnel of the 

 Board of Education has happily 

 changed since it last drafted a Bill. 

 But it is very desirable that Mr. Pease 

 should put his plans in black and white 

 l)efore the country, either in the form of 

 Bills or Memoranda, without delay. 



