Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/87

 1899.] The Socialist Congress. [79

more that was done for the unemployed the less urgent would be the necessity of old-age pensions. Dr. Martin (Chorlton) was disposed to think that the reform of the abuses of our land system lay at the root of the settlement of the question of the unemployed. Mr. Day (Norwich) believed this difficulty of the unemployed was the outcome of our competitive system. A question of such far-reaching responsibilities was eminently suitable for a body of social reformers, and the various sugges- tions put forward were evidence more of the interest aroused than of the remedies proposed for the complex problem of the unemployed.

On the following day (April 1), Mr. Sidney Webb read a paper upon " Technical Education/' Many people, he said, were apt to make the great mistake of thinking that technical education meant trade teaching. As a matter of fact, it meant legally all instruction above the level of the elementary school, with the exception of Greek and literature. Hitherto it had been necessary to pick up our captains of industry, our adminis- trators, our lawyers, doctors and poets almost entirely from a small section — 10 or 20 per cent, of the population — who had enjoyed the advantage of something better than elementary education. If it were possible to carry forward the education of the clever children belonging to the other 80 or 90 per cent., a vast amount of ability would be utilised which at present was going to waste. This was what technical education was trying to do. What was wanted was an adequate number of scholar- ships, which must in all cases be accompanied by a full allowance for the scholars' maintenance as they rose from the elementary school to the university. In London they spent 40,000J. a year on this education, and he himself would urge that 11. per 100 inhabitants should be devoted to this purpose. In addition to scholarships, however, it was necessary to have efficient secondary schools and genuinely accessible universities. The whisky money was rapidly transforming the whole of English education, and it was the special duty of Socialist and Labour members to resist strenuously any attempt to con- fine its use to a narrow middle class. The chairman (Mr. F. Brocklehurst), explained that in Manchester they had remedied the overlapping of educational authorities by agreeing what work should be undertaken by the School Board and what by the City Council. Mr. Brookhouse (West Bromvrich), remarked that personal culture and personal advantage to working-class students were of more importance than merely to give them technical education to qualify them the better as servants who could be more effectively used by employers in the system of competition for increased profits. Mr. W. Crookes was not particularly keen on sending on all the little boys and girls of the artisan class up to colleges and universities. A skilled artisan or a thoroughly domesticated woman was as much use to the whole community as the most highly cultured people at Oxford,