MR. C. S. BEADasked the Vice President of the Council, Whether, when he intimated his desire to make School Boards general throughout England next year, he contemplated doing so for the purpose of imposing a general Education Rate, or only to enable the managers of existing schools to more readily enforce compulsory attendance; and, whether the Education Department would sanction the by-laws of a voluntary school in an agricultural parish, which should enforce the regular attendance of all children between the ages of five and eight, and the attendance for six months only in the year of children between the ages of eight and twelve years?
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERI fear, Sir, that the hon. Gentleman must have misapprehended my remarks last Tuesday week. I do not believe that I expressed any desire to make school boards general throughout England next year for 45 the purpose of imposing a general education rate, or to enable existing school managers to enforce compulsory school attendance. What I intended to say, and what I believe from the report of my speech I really did say, was that, speaking for myself personally, I should be ready for a general compulsory measure next year, and that while I did not think that it was desirable to establish school boards for the purpose of providing schools, when sufficient and suitable school accommodation was already provided without a rate, I also thought that, in considering how to enforce a general compulsory measure, we should have to consider the question of the general establishment of school boards. The hon. Member also asks me, whether we would sanction certain by-laws of a voluntary school in an agricultural parish. It must be clearly understood that the Act only gives us power to sanction by-laws proposed by a school board. If, however, a school board be formed in any parish under the present Act, it need not levy a school rate for school provision, if there be no deficiency, and it might confine its action to a proposition of compulsory by-laws. We should be very glad to receive well-considered by-laws from an agricultural parish, and I know hardly anyone so well fitted as the hon. Gentleman to devise such arrangements as would be suitable for a rural parish. He must, however, permit me to query whether eight is not too young an age at which to stop the regular school attendance, and 12 too young for stopping half-time school attendance.