The modifications proposed by the Government on going into Committee were considerable. They recognised the liberty of parents to send their children to any Sunday School, and they provided that instruction in the catechism. and Church doctrines should be given at a separate hour and in a separate room, and that religious instruction might also be given separately by Dissenting ministers where it was desired. (1) The new plan, in this respect, closely resembled the Irish system. The only compulsory religious observances, were the reading of the Scriptures and the Lord's Prayer, and Catholics were at liberty to withdraw from this. New trust clauses were introduced. The clergyman was to be a trustee, ex-officio, and to have the power of nominating one other, the remaining five being elective-one to be chosen by the subscribers, and four by ratepayers assessed at ten pounds. But one of those cunning "minority" clauses, which are in restriction of the franchise, was introduced, and prohibited ratepayers from voting for more than two trustees; the effect being, as Lord John Russell pointed out, to keep the majority of the Board always on the side of the Church. When the Dissenters were in a minority, they would be able to elect two trustees, who would stand alone; when Churchmen were in a minority, they would send two members to co-operate with the ex-officio trustees. The head master was still to be subject to the veto of the Bishop, but in all matters of management any one trustee was to have liberty to appeal to the Committee of Council.

1 Mr. Skeats, in his History of Free Churches, gives a somewhat confused and incorrect account of these proposals. He says that Sir James Graham proposed "to attach to each school a chapel, with a clergyman." This is hardly borne out by the facts. As amended, the proposition

was to establish a system of combined secular and separate religious teaching, similar to plans which Dissenters have supported before and since. The account also does grave injustice to Lord John Russell's views and motives.

"I am aware," said Sir James Graham, "that the waters of strife have overflowed, and now cover the land-this is my olive branch." (1)

But the concession came too late, the hour for compromise had gone by. The Dissenters had no confidence in the Government or the Church, and they were greatly excited and elated by their successful agitation against the bill. It had revealed resources of numbers, powers of combination, and ability for organized opposition which they had not known they possessed. Mr. Roebuck now took up the question and moved a resolution condemning all attempts on the part of the State to inculcate particular religious opinions, and advocating the entire separation of religious and secular teaching. The proposition was defeated by 156 votes to sixty. But the fate of the bill was sealed. Petitions were as numerous as ever. In the city of London 55,000 persons petitioned against it, and it has been represented that 25,000 petitions containing four millions of signatures were presented against the bill. The Government confessed that they were beaten by Exeter Hall and withdrew the measure. Sir James Graham had now fairly established that ground for suspicion and distrust which afterwards secured for him the reputation of being one of the most unpopular ministers England ever produced.

The Dissenters have been greatly blamed for their action on this occasion, which exposed them to the charge that they also cared less for education than for the good of particular sects. (2) Miss Martineau writes that their position was lowered more by their policy than by anything they had done

or suffered for a century before. It was a "call for magnanimity all round." The Church was in a "genial and liberal mood," but the Dissenters were not equal to the

Hansard, T. S., 68, 1,114. 2 Westminster Review, 1853, 121.

occasion, and they erred widely and fatally. (1) It will be seen that their policy was unfortunate in its consequences on account of the graver defections and differences to which it led; but it is impossible to concur in this indiscriminate censure as just, or to see where the Nonconformists failed in generosity in comparison with their opponents. The bill was a small educational measure. It was another petty adaptation of the tinkering system. Mr. Milner Gibson correctly described it as a pitiful proposal, and Mr. Cobden said it was not worth the controversy it would raise. But the principles were momentous for Dissenters. It was an attack on them on their own ground, and an attempt to arrest the growth of their influence over the manufacturing classes. Nor can it be assumed that it was an educational loss. If the bill had been passed it would have put off for an indefinite period any further efforts by the Government. The Ministers and Bishops with whom they were in alliance were the real obstructives. In this as in nearly every Government scheme proposed, the control of education was given to the hereditary foes of progress and of liberal ideas. There is reason to believe that all parties in the State might now have agreed upon a plan of National Education; but for the opposition of the Bishops. Political economists, and men of great weight in Parliament and amongst all sections of the community were turning their attention to the "combined" system as it existed in Ireland. But the heads of the Church were resolved not to give their sanction to a scheme which did not leave the appointment of the schoolmasters in the hands of the clergy. (2) This was their ultimatum. In the debates on this bill Sir James Graham declared that it was a point on which he could make no concession. From this time the difficulties of compromise increased. New causes of difference sprang into existence. The Education Department was in constant opposition to sections

1 Martineau's History of the Peace. 2 Westminster Review, 1840, 228.

which were themselves bitterly opposed to each other, and the educationists and men of liberal opinions, saw the day of a national system postponed, and even the principle of State Education seriously imperilled.

The errors of the Nonconformists began from this time. They had proved their power for opposition, and they too readily assumed that they were equally potential in construction. The voluntary movement now began, and large bodies of Dissenters of various denominations combined to resist the intervention of Government in education. Henceforward for

many years a large section of the Nonconfomist body was fighting for the integral principle of the English and Roman Churches, that education must be kept under ecclesiastical, or congregational direction. They never avowed this in terms, and each party would have repudiated the alliance, but as a matter of fact Cardinal Manning and Archdeacon Denison on the one hand, and Mr. Baines, Mr. Miall, and Dr. Hamilton on the other were contending for the self same principle—the freedom of education from all State control. Of the two parties the latter were the pure Voluntaryists and the most consistent since they repudiated State aid as well as State direction. The clergy with some notable exceptions who found a leader and representative in Archdeacon Denison, were willing to accept State grants, so long as their right to absolute control was not questioned. This movement, especially as proceeding from the Dissenters, became one of the most formidable obstructions to national education, although both amongst the Church and Nonconformists there was a powerful and distinguished minority which rejected the extreme pretensions of those who assumed to speak with authority for their respective sides.

The discovery by the Nonconformists that State education was hostile to sound political and civil doctrine, and to the development of national life in its highest and purest forms,

was made rather late, and forces the conclusion that the position was assumed rather in defence of sectional interests than on account of any fundamental objections in principle. The Dissenters were driven to this new ground by the partiality which the State system showed to the Church, and by the supreme influence which the clergy were suffered to exercise over the Department. In 1839 the Friends, Baptists, and Congregationalists were unanimous in asking for the agency of the State, and they usually joined in supporting the schools of the British and Foreign Society. The Wesleyans also often supported British schools, and it was not until the Education Committee was appointed in 1836, that they began to establish separate schools where practicable. They never had refused the Government grant, and although they became very suspicious of the Committee of Council, they did not, as a body, embrace the new doctrines of educational free trade and the immorality of Government teaching. Up to the introduction of Sir James Graham's factory bill, the leaders of the Congregationalists, who supplied the energy for the new movement, were not opposed to State aid. In the debates of 1847, Sir George Grey quoted the Leeds Mercury of March, 1842, which advocated two schools in each district-one for the Church and one for Dissent, each to be equally supported by the Government. The objections to Government teaching were first formulated at the meeting of the Congregational Union held at Leeds in 1843, when the excitement of the struggle against the "partial and arbitrary measure" of the Government had not subsided. At this meeting it was decided to support separate schools, and that their future efforts should be voluntary, and wholly independent of State aid. No decided final opinion was at first pronounced on the propriety of Government interference, but doubts were expressed whether it could be allowed "without establishing principles and precedents dangerous to civil and religious