The managers and supporters of the Nonconformist day schools in Birmingham declined to receive the fees, and in a memorial to the Board protested against their payment to other schools. At an immense gathering of Dissenters in the Town Hall, an appeal was made from the School Board to the constituency. At meetings of the Congregational and Baptist Unions it was declared to be a new form of the old Church-rate, to be resisted more resolutely than ever. A representative gathering of the London Nonconformists was held at the Cannon Street Hotel, at which a most emphatic protest was adopted. At every meeting of Dissenters throughout the country, and at the annual meetings of the Associations of Nonconformist churches, resolutions were adopted, encouraging the League in the continuance of the agitation. There was no division or disunion amongst the Dissenters on the question; and the meetings at which the subject was to be discussed were as remarkable for their numbers as for their unanimity.

The feeling was intensified by the partiality shown at the Education Department, and the pressure put upon School Boards to make them adopt bye-laws under section 25. In cases where a power was taken to remit fees under section 17, Mr. Forster said "it would not be just" for the Boards not to avail themselves of section 25. Thus, the Liberals had to contend not only against the Tories, the Church, and the disadvantages of the cumulative vote, but against a Liberal Government, an adverse administration of the Act, and against the moral weight of the Education Department. The Department had often been unpopular in the country, but never so much out of favour as now. The feeling which Mr. Lowe's action upon the revised code had aroused, was of a very different character to that inspired by Mr. Forster. The former had provoked the personal hostility of a few thousand school managers, teachers, and monitors, upon whose vested

interests he was supposed to have encroached. There was a large admixture of personal spite in the antagonism, which was based upon no principle, but upon selfish considerations. But the opposition to Mr. Forster had nothing personal in its nature. It arose from the conviction that he had betrayed the principles which had been entrusted to him, and had thrown back the cause of progress. The respect which he had professed for municipal opinion was in strange contrast with his attempt to make localities accept a forced interpretation of the Act. The usefulness of the Education Department was greatly undermined. It is desirable that a State Department having such extensive and various ramifications should be able to command the respect of the country. This could not be the case when the School Boards flatly refused to obey the instructions of "my Lords." A conflict between a central board and the local governing bodies, backed by the people, could have but one issue. The School Boards at Southampton, Portsmouth, Wednesbury, and other towns refused to be dictated to by the Department. Opinion was still further outraged by the partiality with which the Endowed Schools Act was administered, the tendency of which was to throw the secondary education of the country entirely into the hands of the clergy.

The result was that very early in the course of the agitation, the relations between the Government and their Radical and Dissenting supporters were seriously imperilled. Some attempts were made to check the disintegration; but no concessions were offered on the part of the Government, who held with obstinacy rather than with firmness to the policy they had laid down. Appeals were made to the leaders of the country movement not to endanger the union of the party. Mr. Winterbotham and Mr. Melly were both strongly opposed on principle to the payments in question, but they held that the matter was settled by the Act of 1870, and

that the position must be accepted. This idea was repudiated by the leaders of the agitation, and by the rank and file of the party, and open revolt from the first was only restrained by the strong sentiments of affection and esteem which the Prime Minister had inspired amongst all sections of the party.

The plea of the "right of choice," supposed to be guaranteed by the 25th section, whether put forward by the clergy or the Department—it was never put forward by the parents-was disingenuous. The clause was enforced where there were only denominational schools, and where there could be no right of choice. The very men who set up the cry of the right of choice were those who had made it impossible that there should be any choice in three-fourths of the school districts. Mr. Bright said "I suppose there are probably thousands of parishes in which there will scarcely be any schools but Church schools." This was the state of things which the Act was aimed to produce. The right of choice" was a pretence and was advanced in the interests of the denominational schools. But if the cry had been ever so genuine it was one which the temper of the country would not have acquiesced in. If it meant anything it meant that parents should have the right to have the religion of their choice taught out of the public rates-a claim wholly opposed to the tendencies and principles of modern legislation.

The Act had hardly been a year in operation-scarcely a Board school had been opened, when distraints were being made for the recovery of rates, upon the goods of persons who refused to contribute to the support of denominational schools.

New complications were introduced by the movements in Scotland and Ireland. The Scotch Bill of the Government,

introduced in 1871, was more sectarian in character than the English Act, as it had been amended. The conscience clause, if not a sham in purpose, would have been in practice the merest delusion. The time table was given up. Creeds and formularies were permitted throughout the daily instruction. The universal formation of School Boards, with powers of compulsion, became, under these circumstances, a concession to the Denominationalists, and made it a certainty that wherever compulsion was carried out, sectarian instruction might be forced on every child.

From Scotland attention naturally turned to Ireland. In any case this was inevitable, but it was quickened by the appeals which came to the English Nonconformists from the Protestants of Ireland. The members of the disestablished Church, with those Protestant sects who had helped to procure disestablishment, were already fearful of seeing another religion established in its place. The agitation of the Roman Catholic hierarchy for the overthrow of the combined or mixed system had been stimulated by the definite extension of the sectarian system in England, and there was a growing distrust amongst Protestants in all parts of the kingdom as to the intentions of the Government. In a debate on a Bill of Mr. Fawcett for the abolition of tests in Trinity College, Dublin, Mr. Vernon Harcourt called attention to the reserve and mystery with which the Government shrouded their opinions on the question, and, with great sagacity, predicted that it was the subject which would probably cause the shipwreck of the Liberal party. The uneasiness which was felt had led to the formation of the Education League for Ireland, which was in union with the English League. The objects were, to maintain non-sectarian education in Ireland, to oppose changes in the national system, and to raise the status of teachers and improve the quality of education. If it had not been for

the agitation against the English Act, there would have been great danger of an anarchy of opinion on this subject, caused by the want of candour on the part of Ministers, and their demoralising concessions to Denominationalism in England. While the Times supported denominational education in England, it thought it was high time the Government informed the Roman Catholic prelates that their demands could not be complied with. The Spectator, with more even-handed justice, thought that what was fair for England was fair for Ireland. There was probably some doubt and division in the Cabinet, and it was well known to be a ticklish question. Some Ministers were openly advocating State supported denominational colleges. Mr. Goschen, and Mr. Chichester Fortescue, the then Chief Secretary, proclaimed their desire to extend the denominational system. Mr. Gladstone's speeches left his opinions in doubt, and this very uncertainty was the cause of much anxiety.

The changes demanded by the Roman Catholic heirarchy, as put before the Irish Royal Commission which reported in 1871, were great, startling, and aggressive. The manifesto of the Bishops required "all restriction upon religious teaching to be removed "-" the fulness of distinctive religious teaching to be permitted to enter into the course of secular instruction "—" full liberty to be given to the performance of religious exercises, and the use of religious emblems.” (1) The intention to push their demands to the extremity by means of religious and political organisation soon received confirmation. At a meeting of Roman Catholic Bishops held in October, 1871, a series of resolutions were drawn up and ordered to be read at public masses of the Roman Catholic Church throughout Ireland. Amongst other things the Bishops "declared their unalterable conviction that Catholic education was indispensably necessary for the preservaiton of Report of Mr. Laurie, Assistant Commissioner, par. 40, 3.

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