Page:EB1911 - Volume 08.djvu/1007

 Thus, by virtue of the teacher’s house rent and the wear-and-tear allowance the voluntary managers secured a valuable set-off against the cost of ordinary repairs.

Any question arising under this section (§ 7) between the L.E.A. and the managers of a voluntary school is to be determined by the Board of Education (§ 7 [3]).

It is further provided with respect to teachers in voluntary schools that assistant teachers and pupil teachers may be appointed “if it is thought fit” without reference to religious creed and denomination, and in any case in which there are more candidates for the post of pupil teacher than there are places to be filled, the appointment is to be made by the L.E.A. (§ 7. [5]).

A provision, § 7 (6), known from the name of its author (d. 1908), Colonel Kenyon Slaney, M.P., as the Kenyon-Slaney clause, attracted considerable attention and formed the subject of much ecclesiastical controversy during the passage of the bill through parliament. The Kenyon-Slaney clause requires the religious instruction in voluntary schools to be in accordance with the provisions (if any) of the trust deed, but also to be under the control of the managers as a whole, whereas the common form of trust deed of the National Society reserves the control of religious instruction to the clergyman, whilst the clause was equally in conflict with the well-known sacerdotal principles of the Roman Catholic Church. Thus the clause represented a revival, as did the questions with respect to foundation managers, of the early controversy over the management clauses of the Committee of Council on Education. Its special interest lies, not so much in its intrinsic importance, as in the precedent it affords, specially notable as emanating from a Conservative source, for the overruling of trust deeds upon grounds of public policy. By way of saving another familiar provision of the trust deeds, a proviso to the Kenyon-Slaney clause reserves the existing trust-deed rights of appeal to the bishop or other denominational authority as to the character of the religious instruction.

Provision of New Schools.—New schools may be provided either by the L.E.A. or any other persons, subject to the issue of three months’ public notice, and to a right of appeal on the part of the managers of any existing school, the L.E.A. (in the case of proposed voluntary schools) or any ten ratepayers of the district, to the Board of Education on the ground that the proposed school is not required, or that a school provided by the L.E.A., or not so provided, as the case might be, is better suited to meet the wants of the district than the proposed school. Any enlargement of a public elementary school which in the opinion of the Board of Education is such as to amount to the provision of a new school is to be so treated for the purposes of the section, and any transfer of a school to or from the L.E.A. must be treated as the provision of a new school. In deciding appeals as to new schools and in determining a case of dispute whether a school was necessary or not, the board are directed to have regard to the interest of secular instruction, the wishes of parents as to the education of children, and the economy of the rates, but existing schools are not to be considered unnecessary if the average attendance is not less than thirty (§§ 8-9). The last-mentioned canons have played a prominent part in subsequent discussions. Experience of these sections has shown that though it is extremely difficult to set up new voluntary schools in face of opposition from the L.E.A., such opposition is rarely offered or pressed where any really strong local demand is shown to exist.

Aid Grant.—Section 10 provides a new aid grant payable to the L.E.A. in respect of the number of scholars in average attendance in schools maintained by them. This new grant, calculated by an elaborate method which need not here be set out, took the place of the grants under the Voluntary Schools Act 1897, and § 97 of the act of 1870 as amended by the Elementary Education Act 1897.

Education Committees.—The constitution of education committees is dealt with by § 17. All councils having powers under the act, except those having concurrent powers as to higher education only, must establish education committees in accordance with schemes made by the councils and approved by the Board of Education (§ 17 [1]). A scheme may provide for more than one education committee under a single council, but before approving such a scheme the board must satisfy themselves that due regard is paid to the importance of the general co-ordination of all forms of education (§ 17 [6]). All matters relating to the exercise by a council of their powers under the act, except the power of raising a rate or borrowing money, stand referred to the education committee; the council may also delegate to the education committee any of their powers other than financial powers as above (§ 17 [2]). Every scheme must provide (a) for the appointment of a majority of the committee by the council, the persons so appointed to be persons who are members of the council unless in the case of a county the council otherwise determine; (b) for the appointment by the council, on the nomination or recommendation, where it appears desirable, of other bodies (including associations of voluntary schools) of persons of experience in education, and of persons acquainted with the needs of the various kinds of schools in the area of the council; (c) for the inclusion of women. Provision was also made (d) for the representation in the first instance of members of existing school boards (§ 17 [3]).

Expenses.—All parliamentary grants are made payable to the L.E.A. instead of as previously to the managers (§ 18 [2]). The county council must charge a proportion of all capital expenditure and liabilities, including rent, on account of the provision or improvement of any public elementary school on the parish or parishes which in the opinion of the council are served by the school, such proportion to be not less than one-half or more than three-fourths as the council think fit (§ 18 [1] [c] [d]). The county council may also if they think fit charge on the parishes benefited any expenses incurred with respect to education other than elementary (§ 18 [1] [a]).

Endowments.—The act introduced a new principle into the administration of endowments by directing that their income so far as necessarily applicable in any case for those purposes of a public elementary school for which the local authority are liable must be paid to that authority for the relief of the parochial rate (§ 13). As the result of technicalities of legal interpretation the section has been found to have in practice a narrower scope than had been generally anticipated.

The act of 1902 was extended to London by a separate act in 1903, containing certain special provisions of only minor importance.

The hostility of Nonconformists to the extension of rate-aid to denominational schools led to the organization upon a considerable scale of what became known as the “Passive Resistance” movement, a number of Nonconformist rate-payers refusing to pay the education rate on the ground that their consciences forbade their supporting the religious teaching in denominational schools; and their willingness to become subject to distraint and consequent inconveniences rather than pay the rates became the foundation of a widespread political campaign. In Wales, where in the rural districts the schools were commonly Anglican whilst the population was Nonconformist, particular difficulties arose in administering the act in consequence of the hostile attitude of the county authorities. Friction likewise manifested itself in one or two English areas, which reflected militant Nonconformist views. Accordingly the government passed the Local Education (Local Authority Default) Act 1904, empowering the Board of Education, in the case of default by the local authority, to make payments direct to the managers of the school and to deduct the amount from the sums payable to the defaulting authority on account of parliamentary grants.

When the liberal party came into power again in 1906, Mr Birrell as president of the Board of Education in Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s administration introduced a bill to amend the Education Acts 1902–1903, with the object of securing full public control of all rate-aided schools and the appointment of teachers without reference to religious belief. The bill was of a highly complex character; its principal features were,—compulsory transfer of existing voluntary schools to the local authority, facilities for the giving of denominational instruction in transferred schools out of school hours by persons other than the regular teachers, and the recognition in populous districts, upon the demand of parents, of special publicly maintained schools in which denominational teaching could be included in the curriculum; the latter schools might (according to the bill as finally amended) in the last resort, i.e. if the local authority refused to maintain them, be recognized as state-aided schools. The bill encountered strong opposition from Anglicans and Catholics (though the Catholic Irish members finally voted for it as amended); it passed the House of Commons by a large majority, but after unavailing attempts at compromise upon the amendments introduced in the House of Lords, the two Houses failed to agree and the measure was lost.

Mr Birrell was soon transferred to another office, and nothing more was done to amend the act of 1902 till early in the session of 1908, his successor Mr McKenna introduced a bill based on what was known as “contracting out.” In single-school parishes the existing schools were to be compulsorily transferred, subject to the grant of denominational facilities out of school hours; elsewhere a sufficiency of places in schools with Cowper-Temple teaching, which the bill proposed to make compulsory in all provided schools, must be supplied by the local authority, while existing voluntary schools might become state-aided schools upon terms of receiving a grant of 47s. per head. The bill was accompanied by a financial scheme for a new system of allocating the parliamentary grant. In view of the improbability of its passing into law the bill was