The Dissenters, who had wrecked Graham's Bill of 1843 for educating factory ...

The Dissenters, who had wrecked Graham's Bill of 1843 for educating factory children in Church schools with a conscience clause, took the field against the Committee of Council. As of all the churches the Church of England was the richest and, in fairness it must be added, the most generous, it was foreseeable that the two pounds wouldbe more readily forthcoming for Church schools than for any other.

In effect, therefore, and in the circumstances inevitably, the Government grant would be a subsidy in aid of the education of little Churchmen, or the conversion of little Dissenters. That the bulk of the child population might better have been described as little heathen seems to have escaped the notice of

the reverend opponents to the measure.

But the onslaught of the Voluntarists was encountered with a conviction equal and an eloquence superior to their own, and probably the only speech on Education which has ever been read with pleasure by anyone except the publisheris Macaulay's defence of the new grants against Mr Duncombe, Mr Baines, the Congregational Union,

and John Bright.

Henceforth the education of the people was admitted to be a primary function of the State. From this admission it is not far to the Radical position-education universal, compulsory, and secular-and the only question remaining was how slowly and by what devious routes and compromises it would be reached, and how much energy would be squandered by the way on the interminable rancours of Church and Dissent.