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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

107.: Public Schools [2] 23 JUNE, 1868 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXVIII The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXVIII - Public and Parliamentary Speeches Part I November 1850 - November 1868 [1850]

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The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXVIII - Public and Parliamentary Speeches Part I November 1850 - November 1868, ed. John M. Robson and Bruce L. Kinzer (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1988).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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107.

Public Schools [2]

23 JUNE, 1868

PD, 3rd ser., Vol. 192, cols. 1928–9, 1931–2. Reported (first part) in The Times, 24 June, p. 6. For the Bill, see No. 104. Mill spoke in Committee on Clause 6, concerning the power of the governing bodies to make statutes under certain restrictions. James Lowther (1840–1904), M.P. for York, had proposed an amendment to leave out the section: “With respect to the privileges and number of boys who, under any Statute or Benefaction, may be entitled to any rights to education or maintenance”

(col. 1926).

mr. j. stuart mill earnestly hoped that the Committee would not adopt the Amendment proposed by the honourable Member for York. One of the most scandalous abuses connected with endowed schools was that the endowments intended for the education of children of parents who could not afford to pay for their education, had been in fact confiscated for the benefit of those who could afford to pay for it. Whether this was a case of the kind he did not know; but it appeared that the choristers and the sons of the tenants of the Dean and Chapter had some rights by virtue of the old endowment. The clause did not define their rights, or state whether such rights existed; it merely gave the governing body the power to consider whether such rights existed, and to take measures with respect to them. The subject had attracted the attention of the working classes themselves. To his own knowledge there had been formed in the North of England an association of the working classes to obtain a restoration of their rights—he would not say in Westminster School particularly—but in endowed schools generally. Unless means were taken to deal with this question by a measure of wider extent, the feeling amongst the working classes would grow much stronger, and the House might expect to hear a great deal more of it. It was not merely that there were rights, but the rights were known by the persons for whose benefit they were created. The House would do well to give to the authorities who were to make the new statutes the power of considering this matter amongst others.

[The amendment was defeated (col. 1930). Mill’s second intervention was on Clause 6 as a whole.]

Mr. J. Stuart Mill said, he wished to impress upon the right honourable Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole), who had charge of the Bill, the importance of the suggestion that had been made by the honourable Member for North Devon (Mr. Acland).1 The schools whose case they were considering differed from schools generally, in that they were schools intended for the purpose of imparting the highest class of education; and no one supposed that this either ought to, or need be given to the whole of the children of the working or lower middle classes. But, on the other hand, the élite of those classes had a right to claim that that sort of education should be afforded to them. To those who are most proficient in the lower grades of education, the next highest ought to be opened at the expense of the magnificent endowments for educational purposes in this country. As this was a matter of great importance, requiring to be carefully considered, not so much by the House as by the body the House was about to create, he hoped the Committee would not predetermine that no part of those great endowments should be appropriated to the purpose of providing the higher kinds of education for such persons as those to which he had referred.

[Acland’s suggestion, not being an amendment, was not voted on; the Clause was accepted (col. 1932).]

[1 ]Cols. 1929–30.