§ MR. STEWART MACLIVERasked the Vice President of the Council on Education, If his attention has been drawn to a statement made at Plymouth, on the 28th instant, by Canon Wilberforce, to the effect that the managers of a school at Galmpton had dismissed a female pupil teacher named Trant for wearing the colour of the Blue Ribbon Army; and, whether such interference, if correctly reported, with the dress and opinions of teachers is approved by the department?
§ MR. MUNDELLASir, the girl Trant, who was dismissed from the Galmpton School for wearing a blue ribbon, was not a pupil teacher, but a scholar. Subsequent to her dismissal, three other children were dismissed for the same reason. When the Question appeared on the Notice Paper I caused inquiry to be made of the managers as to the facts of the case; and I am glad to be able to report that, before my telegram reached them, Mr. Bolitho, the owner of the school and the principal manager, had censured the mistress, who, under a mistaken sense of a rule of the school, had dismissed the children, and ordered their immediate re-admission. In a very sensible letter which I have received from Mr. Bolitho this morning, he explains that the expulsion of the children took place in his absence and without his consent; and he expresses a hope, in which I cordially 1416 agree, "that such an act of stupidity, not to say intolerance, will never again be possible in this country." I think I ought to state, in justice to Her Majesty's Inspector, who seems to have been reflected on in Canon Wilberforce's speech, that although he visited the school immediately before the dismissal of the children, he was not consulted on the matter, and was as entirely ignorant of, as he is entirely opposed to, what was done.