LORD BROUGHAMtrusted his noble and learned Friend on the Woolsack would be able to give the same answer which had been given in the other House to his inquiry whether a Commission was prepared and would be forthwith issued for examining the state of the great public schools. He trusted that such inquiry would be subject to no exceptions of establishments under the Universities, or Cathedrals, or other Collegiate body, or of institutions having special visitors. The necessity of inquiry now arose from such exceptions having been introduced into his Bills of 1818 and 1819, and which had prevented the inquiry into, and correction of abuses at that time and ever since. But for the inquiry having thus excluded the great schools, the evils now complained of would long since have been remedied. He had most reluctantly allowed these exceptions to be introduced into the Bill of 1818, but as the second reading of that Bill had only been carried in their Lordships' House by a sort of political miracle in these days, against the opposition of Lord Eldon and the Government, he felt certain that unless he agreed to the exception, the measure must have been lost in its subsequent stages. The year after 1819, he had attempted to get rid of the exception and without success. But the Education Committee had while it sat, after the Bill with its excepting clause passed, inquired into some of these institutions, and had found that the cases where the greatest abuses and errors prevailed were in those institutions which came within the exception. Therefore, he trusted that the inquiry about to be instituted would have no exceptions whatever.
THE LORD CHANCELLORcould assure his noble and learned Friend that the Commission was general and without any exceptions. But he was happy to state that the greatest readiness had been certified by the great schools to further and assist the inquiry by every means; so that it 696 was found unnecessary to introduce any Bill for the purpose of giving powers to the Commissioners.