ABSTRACT
The attitude of the government as a whole to the proposed measure of educational reform became a matter of increasing importance to the president as the time drew near to publish both the white paper outlining the shape of the forthcoming legislation and the draft of the bill itself. A sympathetic hearing and support from the majority of senior ministers was essential if educational reform was to be given an early place among the various possibilities for postwar social legislation. As soon as the elements of a settlement of the religious issue appeared to be emerging from the negotiations with the Church of England in the autumn of 1942, the Board took up actively the work in preparation for a draft bill. A memorandum was prepared drawing together the points which would need to be covered by legislation and the general outlines of a bill were discussed by the president and secretary.[ 1 ] In a letter to James Stuart, the chief whip, on the possibility of taking up parliamentary time for educational reconstruction, Butler explained that the archbishop would be putting a plan to the Church Assembly in November which followed the policy advocated by the Board. If the assembly accepted this scheme, a settlement of the religious question would be nearer than it had been for forty years. If it were possible to use the spirit of wartime, with its political unity and lessening of sectarian strife, to obtain a settlement, it would be very wrong not to seize the chance. Butler also raised the question of whether some reference to educational reform should be made in the king's speech at the opening of Parliament late in the autumn. He sent the chief whip's mildly encouraging reply to the lord president with a letter of his own in which he summarized the current position with regard to the religious issue. Anderson agreed that the plans for educational reform should be brought before an early meeting of the Lord President's Committee.[ 2 ]
