ion; and so long
as Lord Presidents are what they are, and education is what it is, a
Lord President will not be a man who puts his mind to the subject of
education. A Vice-President is not, on the Lord President's own showing,
and cannot be, Minister for Education. He cannot be made responsible for
faults and neglects. Now what we want in a Minister for Education is
this--a centre where we can fix the responsibility." This great and
responsible officer, who presumably was to be a Cabinet Minister and
change with the changes of administration, was to preside over the whole
education of the country. The Universities, the Public Schools, the
Middle-Class Schools, and the Elementary Schools were all to be, in
greater or less degree, subject to his sway. The Minister was to be
assisted by a Council of Education, "comprising, without regard to
politics, the personages most proper to be heard on questions of public
education." It was to be, like the Council at the India Office,
consultative only, but the Minister was to be bound to take its opinion
on all important measures. It should be the special duty of this Council
to advise on the graduation of schools, on the organization of
examinations both in the schools and in the Universities, and to adjust
them to one another. The Universities were not to be increased in
number, but all such anomalous institutions as King's College and
University College were to be co-ordinated to the existing Universities;
and the Universities were to establish "faculties" in great centres of
population, supply professors and lecturers, and then examine and confer
degrees. Then the country should be mapped out into eight or ten
districts, and each of these districts should have a Provincial
School-Board, which should "represent the State in the country," keep
the Minister informed of local requirements, and be the organ of
communication between him and the schools in its jurisdiction. The exact
amount of interference, inspection, and control which the Minister, the
Council, and the Boards should exercise should vary in accordance with
the grade of the schools: it should be greater in the elementary
schools, less in the higher. But, in their degree, all, from Eton
downwards, were to be subject to it. Then came the most revolutionary
part of the whole scheme. Mr. Creakle and his congeners were to be
abolished. They were not to be put to a violent death, but they were to
be starved out. The whole fa