§ MR. BROADHURSTI beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether his attention has been called to the fact that the scholars attending the National Schools at Galleywood, near Chelmsford, were warned by the vicar and the schoolmistress against attending a tea meeting at the Primitive Methodist Chapel in the parish, on Good Friday last; that the scholars intending to go to the tea meeting were asked to hold up their hands, and upon one doing so he was publicly punished in the school; and, that a female monitor was dismissed from her position at the instigation of the vicar for disobeying his warning; and, whether he will take such steps as will prevent a repetition of such conduct on the part of the school authorities?
§ THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir W. HART DYKE,) Kent, DartfordI am informed on inquiry that the schoolmistress was requested by the vicar to use her moral influence to prevent the children taking part in the tea meeting, as inconsistent with the due observance of Good Friday, and that the scholar referred to was punished by being made to stand up in his class for laughing in a loud insolent manner at what she was saying. I think that so far as the intimation conveyed to the children is concerned the vicar exceeded his power as the manager of a public elementary school; but the dismissal of the monitress, who was not recognized by the Department as a secular teacher, was due to arrangements made by the vicar with regard to religious instruction, and therefore outside the cognizance of the Department.