OFFICE OF THE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT, WHITEHALL.
The short debate that followed was extremely flattering to Mr. Forster personally. Liberal and Tory complimented the speech and the Bill, regretting only that the framer should occupy what was nominally, at least, a subordinate position in the Ministry, and should speak as the Vice-President of the Council under its President, Lord de Grey, instead of as "the responsible Minister of Public Instruction." Scarcely a murmur of the coming struggle disturbed the amiability of the House, and on the morning of the 18th of February the newspapers were full of Mr. Forster and Mr. Forster's admirable Bill. For a while it seemed as if the concessions of the Bill, and the conciliatory tone of its advocate, had silenced both the League and the Nonconformists, until a series of ominous articles in the Daily News dispelled the illusion, and a cloud of hostile talk and writing began to gather definitely round certain portions of the proposed Act. By the time the second reading arrived, all the world knew that the Government would find the passing of the measure by no means a matter of such plain sailing as had seemed likely at first. And the motion for the second reading was met, in fact, by a motion of Mr. Dixon's (member for Birmingham and founder of the League), to the effect, "That no measure for the elementary education of the people could afford a permanent and satisfactory settlement which left the important question of religious instruction to be determined by the local authorities." Mr. Forster might well point out with some warmth that the success of such an amendment at the present stage of matters could have no other effect than to throw out the Bill and the Government. Such a question, he argued, should be discussed in committee; only when approached in detail could the religious difficulty be either satisfactorily debated or satisfactorily settled. "Unsectarian education"—which, however, throughout he carefully distinguished from secular education—he thought not at all difficult to reach in practice, though extremely hard to define, and personally he strongly supported it. But unsectarian education could never be attained by definite and minute legislation. "Surely," he said, "the time will come when we shall find out how we can agree better on these matters; when men will discover that on the main questions of religion they agree, and that they can teach them in common to their children. Shall we cut off from the future all hope of such an agreement, and say that all those questions which regulate our conduct in life and animate our hopes for the future after death, which form for us the standard of right and wrong—shall we say that all these are to be wholly excluded from our schools?... I confess I have still in my veins the blood of my Puritan forefathers, and I wonder to hear descendants of the Puritans talk of religion as if it were the property of any class or condition of men. The English people cling to the Bible, and no measure would be more unpopular than that which should declare by Act of Parliament that the Bible shall be excluded from the schools!" Cut the knot of the religious difficulty in this way, and a far greater irreligious difficulty would be created. Instead of the few individuals who might, were the Bill passed in its present form, object to paying the school rate, multitudes would be found objecting to an education from which religion was left out. The greater part of Mr. Forster's speech consisted of an appeal on behalf of local government as against central government. What the amendment proposed, he said, was to force the central government to adopt one rigid line of policy, regardless of all the varying circumstances and wishes of the different localities, the result of which could only be to produce endless opposition and heart-burning. Under the Bill the will of the majority in any given neighbourhood would always take effect, whether that will was in favour of secular or religious education. Only let the House set its face against any abstract proposition like the present amendment. In committee would be the place and time to discuss the several points as they arose, fairly and calmly, and to take the sense of the House upon the religious question detail by detail.
The second night of the debate upon the second reading was marked by an effective and brilliant speech, in behalf of secular education, from Mr. Winterbotham, the young Liberal and Nonconformist member for Stroud. All the opinions and prejudices which the great majority of the House had been accustomed to consider as the mere vulgar talk of back-alley Dissent, they were now to hear expressed in logical and forcible English by a man of liberal culture and large experience, who, while freeing himself from what were regarded as the worst and most narrowing influences of the Nonconformist creed, was yet true to all its main articles, and unfeignedly proud of being a Dissenter. The speech represented far better, and more vividly than anything else in the Education debates, the real feeling of the great Nonconformist party. It embodied their whole claim, and stated their whole grievance with singular sharpness and vigour. It went to the root of the question, and the Church party were fairly startled by the depth and bitterness of the feeling disclosed. The cultivated Churchman, or the philosophic essayist, might equally deplore the additional narrowness and heat imported by Mr. Winterbotham into the controversy upon Education, when he represented the question as so largely affected by social differences and social jealousies. But the fact remained, and subsequent history only brought out more clearly the unhappy and lamentable truth, that the difference between Church and Dissent was, at least in many places throughout England, marked by the worst characteristics of a class quarrel. Such a speech as Mr. Winterbotham's could not but rouse the Churchmen of the House. The challenge was taken up in turn by Lord Robert Montagu, Mr. Beresford Hope, who thought it "impossible to conceive a speech worse-timed, or struck in a more unfortunate key," and that Churchman of Churchmen, Sir Roundell Palmer, who rebuked the Dissenters through Mr. Winterbotham, not without some dignity and reason, for "inflaming the religious difficulty." He declared in decisive language, "that the views advocated by the member for Stroud were such as never could be accepted as the basis of a common system of national education by that portion of the people who belonged to the Established Church." He argued from "the broad facts of existing schools" that the mind of the country as a whole was strongly opposed to the principle of secular education, and in favour of that of religious education. On the other hand, Mr. Miall and Mr. Auberon Herbert spoke strongly in favour of the amendment; while Mr. Samuelson, also a member of the League, announced, as did Mr. Mundella on the third night of the debate, that, while approving heartily of the principle of the amendment, he should vote against it, believing that the advocates of unsectarian education should reserve all their strength for the amendment of the Bill in committee, rather than risk, by such a motion as Mr. Dixon's, the indefinite postponement of the whole question. Mr. Lowe had as usual a witty remark to make upon the situation. It reminded him, he said, of a fine herd of cattle in a large meadow, deserting the grass that was abundant all about them, and delighting themselves by fighting over a bed of nettles in the corner of the field—the bed of nettles being of course the religious difficulty. He denied altogether that Government had "nailed their colours to the mast," and were determined to make no concessions. In fact, his cry was the same as Mr. Forster's: "Let us get into committee; then will be the time to make concessions on both sides." The third night of the debate was marked by several fine speeches. First of all came a clever, popular, ad captandum attack upon the Government by Mr. Vernon Harcourt. He returned Mr. Lowe's hard hits with others equally hard, and drew an amusing picture of the municipal elections of the future, when the Bill had introduced into them the fatal element of religious disagreement. Mr. Mundella and Mr. Jacob Bright took up the middle position of voting against the amendment for conscience' sake, the speech of the former being memorable for its moderation and fairness of tone. Conservative speakers like Sir Charles Adderley were, of course, strong in their denunciations of Mr. Dixon's proposal; but though Government were sure of their majority, it was thought politic not to alienate their Radical supporters by allowing the question to proceed to a division. Mr. Gladstone rose to play the part of peacemaker—which, indeed, was his rôle throughout the Education debates—and promised large concessions on the three important points of compulsion, the election of school boards, and the relation of religious to secular teaching. With this promise the recalcitrant Liberals professed to be contented. Mr. Dixon withdrew his amendment, and the Bill was allowed to pass the second reading.
Except for an occasional question and answer as to the meaning of certain portions of the Bill, the subject of Education was not again brought forward in the House till three months had passed away. That time was spent by the Education Office in a careful collection of statistics, in the preparation of reports, and in various other routine business. And by the statesmen in charge of the Bill it was spent to great profit in observing and noting the true direction of public feeling on the matter. The general current of Liberal opinion was indeed unmistakable, and it was felt on all hands that concessions must be made to it in committee. And concessions indeed were made, so far as Mr. Forster considered the essential principles of the Bill allowed. Meanwhile he had to endure much undeserved opprobrium, since the League persisted in treating him as a scapegoat, and affected to exonerate the rest of the Ministry at his expense. There was a moment when Mr. Gladstone was disposed to yield to the clamour, but Mr. Forster, though much dispirited by the attacks of his former friends, particularly in Bradford, was resolute in adhering to the principles of voluntary schools and Bible teaching. Mr. Gladstone opened the debates in committee on the 16th of June by the announcement that the Government, while rejecting a motion of Mr. Vernon Harcourt's for "undenominational education," combined with "unsectarian instruction in the Bible," on the ground that such phrases were vague and unpractical, were prepared to accept Mr. Cowper-Temple's amendment, "to exclude from all rate-built schools every catechism and formulary distinctive of denominational creeds, and to sever altogether the connection between the local school boards and the denominational schools, leaving the latter to look wholly to the central grant for help." This amendment was practically identical with a compromise, which Mr. Forster had himself suggested in a letter to Lord Ripon written on the 18th of May. In consequence of this, the central grant to all schools, rate-built or voluntary, was to be increased from one-third to one-half the total cost. The remaining half was to be rates and school-pence in the case of board schools, and voluntary subscriptions and school-pence in the case of denominational schools. Mr. Disraeli, in reply, had a great deal to say with regard to this proposal, which he described as an "entirely new Bill;" but Government knew very well that at this particular juncture they had little to fear, and everything to hope, from the Conservatives, and the policy of the League was just now far more important to them than any skirmishing of Mr. Disraeli's. An amendment by Mr. Richards, to the effect that "in any national system of elementary education the attendance should be everywhere compulsory, and the religious teaching supplied by voluntary effort, and not out of public funds," provoked another long debate on the "religious difficulty," in which a few irreconcilable Conservatives joined with Mr. Winterbotham and Mr. Vernon Harcourt to harass the Government. Once more did Mr. Forster defend his position, winding up a practical and temperate speech with language unexpectedly determined. The Government, he said, meant to yield no more ground. "We have considered," he said, "the whole of the religious question, and we present the Bill to the House in the form in which we think we must adhere to it." Upon the supporters of the amendment, should it be successful, must "rest the responsibility of defeating the Bill, and preventing the settlement of the Education Question this year." Once more did Mr. Gladstone endeavour to pour oil on the troubled waters, promising that "effectual guarantees should be taken against the violation of conscience in rate-schools through the acts of a narrow or sectarian spirit," and pointing out to the Nonconformists that, in return for the great concession that was being made to them, in excluding all creeds and catechisms from rate-built schools, they owed some counterbalancing forbearance and consideration to the Church party, which felt as strongly as they, and had greater educational services to plead. But come what might, Government would stand by their Bill, and no more would be yielded. Mr. Richards' amendment, however, was thrown out by 421 to 60—figures which might well give Government confidence. Nor were these proportions substantially altered in later divisions. The Bill was carried through triumphantly, in spite of ardent Churchmen like Sir Stafford Northcote, who were strongly opposed to the Government concessions, no less than of Mr. Dixon and Mr. Jacob Bright. In his diary Mr. Forster described the 30th of June as the day on which the Bill passed through its crisis, and shortly afterwards his position was greatly strengthened by promotion to a seat in the Cabinet. Night after night did he sit through the tedious debates, ready to answer every question and parry every attack, evincing throughout such unfailing good humour, combined with such unflinching determination, that the House was at once impressed and conciliated. Strong in the general support of the Conservatives, joined to that of the moderate Liberals, he defended his Bill at every essential point, regardless of the telling and often bitter criticism of the League. Still certain important alterations were made before the Bill became law; chiefly that the school boards were to be re-elected every three years; that the school rate was not to be levied under a distinct name; that the election of school boards should be on the cumulative principle—that is, that where each voter had a number of votes, he might bestow them all on a single candidate if he chose, instead of being compelled to divide them equally. Finally, after a debate of twenty-one days, the Bill passed the third reading without a division, but amid the anathemas of both classes of irreconcilables. While Mr. Dixon pronounced that Government had aroused "the suspicion, distrust, and antagonism of some of their own most earnest supporters," Mr. Gathorne Hardy charged them with "inaugurating a system of hypocrisy, treachery, and baseness." Mr. Forster enjoyed the fate of all neutrals—of being heartily abused by both belligerents.
In the House of Lords the Bill was well treated, the only important amendment being moved and carried by the Duke of Richmond, to the effect that vote by ballot should not extend to other than metropolitan elections. With this alteration the Bill passed through its last stages and became law, and it may be added that, whatever its defects, it marked an epoch in the history of our educational system. The religious difficulty did not disappear with the passing of the Bill, as was natural to a difficulty which after all was primarily not religious but social. The platforms of the League and the Union—of Nonconformity and the Established Church—were the platforms on which the later elections for school boards were generally fought; but the first elections largely showed that the Bill was being loyally accepted by all parties, and Mr. Forster was greatly pleased when Lord Lawrence, ex-Viceroy of India, agreed to become Chairman of the first School Board for London. Certainly the Act brought education within the reach of every English child, and "covered England with good schools;" and the rancour of the League defeated its own ends when Mr. Forster, on addressing his constituents in the autumn, was received with a vote of censure.
All minor legislative undertakings of the year, even the Land Bill and the Education Act themselves, were for the time wholly eclipsed and driven out of public memory by news that arrived in England, by telegraph, on the 22nd of April—news fraught with personal loss and sorrow to many, which roused throughout England generally a storm of grief and indignation. The facts were these: On the morning of the 11th of April, a party of residents and tourists, comprising Lord and Lady Muncaster, Mr. Herbert, Mr. Vyner, Mr. Lloyd, his wife and child, and Count de Boyl, set out from Athens to visit the battle-field of Marathon, that famous crescent-shaped piece of flat sea-shore, where the destinies of Europe were once staked upon a single throw, and the "teeming East" received that decisive check, the importance of which to subsequent European history none can over-estimate. The gentlemen of the party before setting out had made stringent inquiries in Athens respecting the rumoured presence of brigands in the country round Marathon. Mr. Herbert had received official information to the effect that Attica, was safe, and, the Government declared, perfectly free from brigands. Still, to guard against any possible danger, the Government engaged to send with them an escort of four mounted gendarmes, who were to be joined en route by others. Thus provided, they set out, and, after such a day as a party of cultivated people were likely to spend in such a place as Marathon, they were driving back to Athens in the warm spring evening. Only the four gendarmes were in sight of the carriage—two riding in front, and two behind; but the inmates knew that at least six foot-soldiers were a little way behind them, while it was rumoured that a further body of twenty-five soldiers had left Marathon in their wake, ready to render help if necessary.
CAPTURE OF ENGLISH TOURISTS BY GREEK BRIGANDS. (See p. [542].)