§ MR. BAINESsaid, he wished to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Whether it is intended, in the Return of "Schools for 1997 the Poorer Classes of Children," ordered to be made from the Municipal Boroughs of Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, and Manchester, to include all Schools for the Children of the Working Classes, and especially whether the Return will include Private Schools, Night Schools, the Schools and Classes of Mechanics, and similar Institutions, and Sunday Schools?
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, in reply, that if his hon. Friend would refer to the Return for which he had moved, he would find that it included all the schools in which the fee was under 1s., and that would include all schools for the children of the working classes. But the Return was also intended to include schools for the children of those who unfortunately did not work, either because they could not or did not wish to find work—namely, ragged schools; and it was especially the object of the Government that the Return should include private schools, night schools, schools of mechanics' institutes, and similar institutions, and, in fact, all week-day schools. It was not intended to include Sunday schools, not from any feeling that they were not most useful institutions, but because the object of the inquiry was to find out the amount of secular education. They could hardly empower the Government Inspectors to examine schools at which religious instruction only was given.