_Punch's_ comments foreshadowed the conflict that raged over the Education Bill of 1896, which had been framed to redeem the pledge given by the Government to aid voluntary schools. Denounced by the Opposition as a deliberate attempt to shatter the school-board system and promote the interest of a particular sect, while, on the other hand, all sects were agreed that the proposed aid was inadequate; swamped by amendments--1,238, to be precise, had been placed on the paper when the House met in June after the Whitsuntide Recess--the Bill was abandoned in Committee without exciting any real regret from any party. _Punch_ chronicles its withdrawal without any comment, but his silence cannot be interpreted as expressing satisfaction with the existing _régime_. In 1899 he falls foul of Sir John Gorst, then the acting head of the Board of Education, for his alleged intention of entrusting the teaching of all other children to half-educated pupil teachers. The progress and passage of the much-discussed Education Act of 1902 revived _Punch's_ distrust of the so-called "friends" of the human child. He shows Mr. Balfour on a bicycle steering a perilous and devious course beset with obstacles, and develops the theme in a fable, based on that of the Old Woman going to Market, in which Lord Hugh Cecil, Mr. Bryce, Archbishop Temple, Mr. Lloyd George and Sir William Harcourt are brought in to represent the various and conflicting elements in the struggle. _Punch's_ moral is that "if you don't all hurt each others' feelings a good deal, there's no chance of getting the Education Bill through Parliament." The truth of this comment was abundantly shown by the vehement controversy which arose over the famous Kenyon-Slaney amendment, limiting the right of an incumbent to give religious instruction in a Church School--a provision which infuriated the High Anglicans and was reluctantly acquiesced in by moderate Churchmen. _Per contra_ Dr. Percival, the Bishop of Hereford, who voted with the Opposition, declared that the Bill had given great strength to the Opposition to the Church in the country and tended to destroy its spiritual influence. And Lord Rosebery, while not in favour of the refusal of Nonconformists to pay rates, confessed that if they submitted tamely to the enactments of the Bill they would cease to exist politically. [Sidenote: _A Stepping-Stone Ministry_]