FUNCTION AND COMPOSITION OF TOWN COUNCILS

In relation to matters intellectual and educational, there had existed, for a very long time, a social prepossession against extending the functions of Local Councils and Parish Vestries, and a social prejudgment that in the hands of town corporators and of parish vestrymen any powers of dealing with such matters would be pretty sure to be abused on the one hand, or to be neglected on the other.

Whether well or ill-founded, at any particular epoch of our municipal history, the fact that such a feeling has existed, and does still to some extent exist, is unquestionable. Nor is there any room to doubt that it had some share in that persistent opposition to the particular measure of legislation now under view, the course and consequence of which has just been narrated. It is, at this moment, one cause – amongst many – of difficulties which impede thorough and imperial legislation about Schools. And the pregnant bearings of the actual history of rate-supported Libraries upon the prospective or possible creation of ratesupported Schools, whilst they add not a little to the intrinsic interest of the theme discussed in these pages, will also be found to have a tendency to enhance the interest of the questions ‘Is the low but obviously the prevalent estimate of town Councillors and parish Vestrymen merely a prejudice?