On Tuesday Mr. Lloyd George moved a Resolution attack- ing
our system of primary education, and drew a lurid picture of the condition of the voluntary schools, of the tyranny of Church managers, the disabilities of Nonconformists who wished to become pupil teachers, or to attend Training Colleges, and the unscrupulous proselytising carried on in voluntary schools by the clergy. The best answer to Mr. Lloyd George came from Mr. Taxan, a Radical M.P. and educational expert, who deliberately gated that "those who knew most about the question from experience were satisfied that the barrier between voluntary and Board schools was of the thinnest description and could easily be removed." It remained for Sir John Gorst, in a very able though somewhat cynical speech, to dissect Mr. Lloyd George's grievances seriatim. As for the religious grievance, he roundly declared that village parents were, as a rule, pro- foundly indifferent as to the religious teaching their children received, but that they preferred the Church school catechism and clerical tyranny to the School Board rate. Sir Henry Fowler repudiated Sir John Gorst's description of the rural Nonconformists as a libel, and reiterated the charge that Non- conformists were boycotted as pupil teachers. The debate was closed by Mr. B tlfour, who defined the issue as the maintenance or abandonment of the voluntary schools, and the Motion was rejected by 204 to 81.
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