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(6) By Sir John Wolfe Barry

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THE DECAY OF MANNERS.' By Adolphus Vane Tempest

Barrie

THE TRAGEDY OF THE 'Ex.' By Mrs. John Lane

UNIVERSAL MILITARY TRAINING AS A PRACTICABLE SCHEME. By the
Right Hon. Lord Haliburton

THE BRITISH FLEET AND THE BALANCE OF SEA POWER. By Archibald

S. Hurd

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THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND: A PLEA FOR REFORM. By the Earl of
Cardigan

THE KING'S SPEECH. By Herbert Paul :

EGYPT TO-DAY. By Sir Auckland Colvin

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A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY FEMINISTE. By Mrs. W. Kemp-Welch.

M. CLEMENCEAU AS WRITER AND PHILOSOPHER.

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OUR BROTHERS, THE BEASTS. By Lady Archibald Campbell

PLAYING AT SOLDIERS. By E. N. Bennett

THE ANGELIC COUNCIL.' By the Rev. Dr. A. Smythe Palmer

RELIGION AND THE CHILD. By Havelock Ellis

THE EDUCATIONAL LADDER. By Katharine Bathurst

THE FEMALE PRISONER. By Captain Vernon Harris
PIRATE TRELAWNY. By T. C. Down

THE FIRMNESS OF CONSOLS. By Hartley Withers
WHAT TO DRINK. By Lieut.-Colonel F. A. Davy

IDLE READING. By Herbert Paul

THE PEARL FISHERY OF CEYLON. By Somers Somerset

AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS. By the Rev. Alfred J. Church

PAN-ISLAMISM By Behdjet Wahby Bey

THE UNREST IN INDIA-ITS MEANING. By Ameer Ali

THE WHITE FLAG' IN JAMAICA. By Ian Malcolm

ARE CHRISTIAN MISSIONS IN INDIA A FAILURE ? By the Right Rev.

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INDIAN ADMINISTRATION AND SWADESHI.' By E. B. Havell

THE KING OF SIAM AND HIS COUNTRY. By Frederick Verney .

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THE EDUCATION BILL OF 1906 AND THE FUTURE OF POPULAR EDUCATION

THE Education Bill is gone. After a stormy voyage, and after the jettison of many valuable provisions, it has foundered in sight of the port in which its battered hull and damaged cargo might have

found shelter.

There were two main principles in the Bill which were nominally accepted by all: (1) Universal public management; (2) The abolition

of tests for teachers.

But, as is not uncommon in English legislation, these principles were not fully carried out even in the Government scheme, and they were further assailed by various sections of the Opposition. Those who listened to the long debates must have sometimes got a little tired of professions like those of the Archbishop of Canterbury that he would not favour any wrecking amendments, and they must have smiled at the latest attempt of Lord Lansdowne to count up the number of Opposition amendments and those proposed by Lord Crewe, and then to suggest that the Government alterations were

VOL. LXI-No. 359

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B

more extensive than those of the Opposition. A well-directed thrust through the body is more fatal than a conspicuous rent in the outer garments.

'Tis not as deep as a well nor as wide as a church door, but it will

serve.

Before we consider what is the best course of action for the Liberal party in future, let us briefly sum up what led to the dead Bill and what that dead Bill would have done.

There is no need to dwell upon relatively ancient history. Everyone knows that from the first beginning of State aid to education down to the Act of 1870 popular education was almost entirely in the hands of the Established Church, which not only opposed with all its great political and social force the establishment of a system publicly maintained and publicly managed, but strove, while accepting State aid, to keep State interference within the narrowest limits.

The Act of 1870, by introducing the new force of the elected School Board supported by the rates, introduced that which was bound gradually to supersede the old privately managed system under ecclesiastical control.

The Voluntary schools were allowed to subsist and to obtain increased Government grants, on condition that one-half their income should be derived from local effort.

It is not necessary to recapitulate how this obligation was systematically evaded and weakened, even to such an extent as to reckon Parliamentary grants paid by the Science and Art department as contributions which should be accepted as filling up the gap and as preventing the diminution of the ordinary Parliamentary grant.

The Statute book from 1870 down to 1902 is full of enactments one after another diminishing or removing the obligations which Mr. Gladstone laid down as essential to his scheme of continued recognition and Parliamentary aid, and, in addition, the Board of Education has systematically administered the Acts in a manner as sympathetic as possible to the Voluntary system, straining the law and the administration of the code where they might press hardly on Voluntary schools.

Nevertheless the time came when, in spite of all these alleviations, the denominations, and especially the Established Church, found it impossible to maintain the struggle, and advantage was taken in 1902 of an exceptional majority won at an election where the Conservative party appealed on patriotic grounds for an exceptional and non-party support.

The result was the Education Act of 1902, making the maintenance of all schools a charge upon the rates, while leaving the effective management in the hands of bodies two-thirds of whom were the successors of the old denominational managers.

The one material duty left to private effort was that of main

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