§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, When lie will lay upon the table the Annual Report of the Committee of Council; whether he has issued instructions to Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools directing that this year and in future Reports will be required from only one-half of their number; and whether the Reports received this year from the Inspectors will be presented to the House in the usual manner, and without omission or mutilation?
§ MR. LOWEreplied, that the Report of the Committee of Council would be laid upon the table about the beginning of June, which was the ordinary time. No Department made its Reports more speedily than the Department of Education. The Reports of the Inspectors up to the 31st of December were only just received, and, considering the labour those Inspectors underwent, and the examinations they had to make at the training colleges, it was impossible for them to Report earlier. With respect to the second question put by the right hon. Baronet, he answered that in the affirmative. Formerly, the rule was that the chief Inspectors should alone Report, and many of the chief Inspectors had assistants, who did not report. The distinction between chief and assistant Inspectors had been abolished, and the districts divided into smaller ones, so that each Inspector had a district to himself, and for which he was alone responsible; consequently, if each Inspector were to report, there would be double the usual number of Reports printed, and double the expense incurred by the country for that purpose, which now, including the time occupied by the Inspectors and the cost of printing, amounted to about £2,000. As to the third question, whether the Reports received from the Inspectors would be presented in the usual manner', and without mutilation or omission, he had to say that they would be presented in the usual manner. The right hon. Baronet did not seem, if he might judge from his question, to be quite aware what that usual manner was. It was the usual manner to present the Reports without omission or mutilation. A 1824 Report was either presented as it came from the Inspector, or not at all. If it appeared to the Committee of Council that any of the Inspectors had transgressed their instructions, his Report was sent back to him for correction; and if it was found, when returned, not to be in a proper form, it was not laid on the table of the House.
§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had stated that he had called upon only half the Inspectors to report. He wished to know whether all the Reports so sent in would be laid on the table without the suppression of any of them?