LONDON EDUCATION BILL

Evening Star, Issue 11895, 25 May 1903, Page 6

LONDON EDUCATION BILL

A POPULAR PROTEST. PROCESSION "THROUGH THE STREETS. 100,000 GATHER IN HYDE PARK. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. TbtfDON, May 24. (Received May 25, at 9.22 a.m.) As a protest auainst the City of London Education Bill, hundreds of Nonconformists, including the congregations of many churches, led by their ministers, members of trades unions, and benevolent societies held a procession through the City. They met on the Thames Embankment, and from there marched to Hyde Park amid the singing of hymns and with banners flying and bands playing. The brilliant weather attracted 100,000 persons to the Park, where a great demonstration was held. Twelve platforms were erected, and Dr Clifford, president of ' the Metropolitan Free Churches’ Council, and other ministers, as well as Mr Iloyd George, M.P., and other members of the Hous” of Commons, denounced the Bill, which, it was nr ed, would lead to the destruction of the School Board by the overweighing of the London County Council. The speakers claimed that it was necessary that the schools should be controlled by a directly elected body. The Government had previously announced that, in consequence of last Wednesday s debate in the Commons, the borough councils’ functions would be confined to local management, their proposed representation on the Central Committee bring abandoned. [The London ‘ Time”,’ which predicted a thorny path for the Bill, said, the morning after ts introduction in the Commons : "The general impression, we fancy, will be that the Government had no option b it to carry out in London th- main principle of their last year’s Act bv making the London County Council the local authority for all kinds of education, but that they have introduced elements of difficulty and complexity by associating the new and as yet nntried metropolitan borough council* rot only with the local management, bat. even with the Central Committee. One of their supporters. Colonel »ockwood, who speaks witn knowledge and interest upon educational matters, said that he should Ike to see the boron;h councillors struck out en b!oo from the Eduect : on Committee. Were this done, it would leave the 10-al authority, as in the counties and county boroughs, with a clear maiority upon the Committee. The necessity o‘f abolishing the School Board for London will not. we believe, be lament'd or resented so much as Dr Macnnmarn and Others would have us believe. The School has no doubt done a good work, and fully justified its exi-t»nce as a temporary expedient for satisfying educational demands that had outgrown the power of existing agencies to deal with. But it has only covered part of the field ; its excursions jufn the other part have not argued special fitness to deal with secondary education, nor has it been so wholly satisfactory to the ratepayers or so thoroughly re-r-roseutarive of the people as its champions ent. The country ha* by this rime nooiresced in the .loss of other school hoards, and London will not sorrow long for its own.”]