schools. Aye, if you ask extreme sectarians they will always tell you that the things wherein they differ from others are the fundamental doctrines of their faith. They will always tell you that. These are the things they defend, these are the things that are attacked, and the man who defends a post always exaggerates its importance in the general line of battle. But, after all, all the great Christian virtues are undenominational, and the greatest virtue of all is certainly undenominational-I mean charity. These things you can teach in the schools. Here is a catechism that was put into my hands to-day from one of our Colonies-a catechism in which they all agree (except the Catholics, whose attitude towards the Bible is entirely different) a common syllabus of teaching for the children of Jamaica. I find the first man who signs it is the Archbishop of the West Indies, and you have the leading men of the denominations there frankly recognising the differences that divide them. But they say there is a sufficient common body of doctrine and faith which they can teach to the children in all schools without any distinction. Ah! after all, I am not here to criticise catechisms of denominations, but they have a way of putting in the background the things which the Founder of our faith put in the foreground. I was amazed, going through them, to find that that sublime code of Christian morals the Sermon on the Mount-is not in these catechisms at all, for the reason given by Lord Robert Cecil, who said it was worthless for the purpose of teaching religion. He said so in the House of Commons. There is nothing in them that would induce you to believe that the advent of the Christian era was heralded by a proclamation of peace on earth and goodwill to men. What is Wanted in the Schools. What we want taught in the schools is something that will raise the people out of that quicksand of wrong from which for centuries they have been struggling in vain to extricate themselves. Denominationalism has had its chance. It has taught our rulers, our statesmen-the men who governed the land for 1,200 years; and there are millions of people to-day on the verge of hunger in the richest land that e'er the sun shone on. Let us have something that will help the people out of that. The two greatest lifts humanity has had for 1,900 years came from a revolt against denominationalism the Protestant Reformation and the French Revolution; and what we want is a teaching that will educate the conscience of the nation, so that it cannot tolerate a system of things where one man hungers so that another should feast; where one man is broken in health, strength, will, spirit, and heart on the wheels of toil so that another shall spend his days in sloth and his nights in dissipation. What we want is a teaching that will be for the people in the days that are to come a pillar of fire in the gloom of the night to lead them to that land of promise where there shall be no oppression, no injustice, not wrong, no war, and where brotherhood shall reign. THE EDUCATION BILL, 1906: SUMMARY WITH FULL TEXT AND NOTES. Price 1d., Post Free 1d. THE EDUCATION BILL, 1906: MR. BIRRELL'S SPEECH THE EDUCATION BILL, 1906: EXPLAINED AND 2078 The Education Bill, 1906: Its Main Principles ... 2079 All Elementary Schools to be under Public Management and Control ... 2080 Pages. Price per 1,000. "Cowper-Temple" Teaching 2 ... ... ... ... 3s. ... 2082 The Education Bill, 1906: Church Opinion in its Favour LIBERAL PUBLICATION DEPARTMENT, 42, Parliament Street, S. W. Printed by the NATIONAL PRESS AGENCY LTD., Whitefriars House, Carmelite St., London, E. C. 11 THE EDUCATION BILL, 1906. SPEECHES DELIVERED BY THE Right Hon. H. H. Asquith, M.P. (Chancellor of the Exchequer), AND THE Right Hon. A. Birrell, M.P. (President of the Board of Education), ON THE THIRD READING IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS On JULY 30th, 1906. PUBLISHED BY THE LIBERAL PUBLICATION DEPARTMENT (In connection with the National Liberal Federation and the Liberal Central Association), 42, PARLIAMENT STREET, LONDON, S.W. THE EDUCATION BILL, 1906. 1.-Speech by Mr. Asquith on the Third Reading. The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. Asquith) said:It is always an inevitable risk under any form of official closure that the whole of the multifarious provisions in a measure such as this should not each receive, perhaps, an exactly due proportion of discussion. But I think that nobody who has followed, even superficially, our long and protracted debates would deny that the main and governing principles of this Bill have been minutely and laboriously canvassed, and they are now clearly, and I may say universally understood. If I intervene it is not because I have any ambition or hope of being able to contribute any novelty to the discussion, but I do think it desirable, now that we are about to part with the Bill, at any rate in this House, to state in a few sentences what I, and I believe my colleagues in the Government, conceive to be its actual scope and effect, in the shape in which the measure now leaves this House. What the Bill Does. In the first place, by the operation of Clause 1, which I venture to think has received a disproportionately little share of attention, by the operation of Clause 1 we make an enormous step in advance in the sphere of administrative reform. After January 1st, 1908, if this Bill passes into law, every public elementary school-by which, of course, I mean every school maintained both out of the rates and the taxes every public elementary school will become a provided school, and will be under the exclusive management and control of a representative public authority. That means that so far as management is concerned we are to put an end by this Bill to the dual system created by the Act of 1902. In the next place, no teacher appointed and paid by the State is to be appointed hereafter subject to the condition that he is to give religious teaching, or that he is to belong to any particular religious communion, or any religious communion at all. The effect of that is that we emancipate the teaching profession, and that for the first time it becomes in all its stages from bottom to top a perfectly open career. Thirdly, in every public elementary school under this Bill provision may |