THE EDUCATION BILL. LONDON, February 25.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 4 March 1908, Page 19

THE EDUCATION BILL. LONDON, February 25.

.JaQr M'Kenna (President of the BoaTd cf Education), appealing for sympathy and the abandonment of partisanship, introduced a bill giving rate aid exclusively to the council type of schools; having teachers appointed without religious tests ; no State aid to voluntary schools in single school areas; and non-compulsory attendance at any voluntary schools. Parents objecting to these may choose the local authority school.. The Exchequer grant will be 47s per child at voluntary and council schools for the same standard of secular instruction. In the event of the trustees being unCible to continue they must transfer the school to the local authority, which must facilitate denominational instruction outAide school hours. \ Voluntary schools recover the right to charge fees. Mr Balfour derided the idea that bill would bring peace. It inflicted an injustice upon parents, in the country and m, gross ill-treatment on voluntary tnanagtss, And as regards the towns it de#£w>yed the great jrork commenced in 1903. Mr Asquith said no other solution was {Kwaible. - ' i The Nonconformist members of the House of Commons accorded the bill a somewhat lukewarm reception, Mr Perks suggesting reconsideration of the urban clauses. •The Nationalists are strenuously noncommittal on the measure. The Times says that the English sense ©{ justice will resent the obvious attenpt to cripple the_ Church rural schools unless they accept the proposed limited facilities of denominational teaching. February 26. The resolutions passed by the Noncon-"" fonnist and Welsh members of the House of Commons did not commit either group to an unqualified approval of Mr ' M^Kenna's Education Bill. The High Churchmen fiercely denounce it, and FatheT Vaughan, speaking at the iE^efc End, said it was altogether an im"^poseible bill, while Archbishop Bourne, at" Leeds, stated that he believed it would prove unworkable.