§ MR. JAMES STUART (Shoreditch)I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether, in reply to an application made to the Local Government Board by the Guardians of the Poor of the parish of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, that the education given in their schools about to be established under the Poor Law should be placed under the Education Department, the Local Government Board informed the Guardians, on 11th July, 1887, that the question whether the assimilation of the Local Government Board's system and the Education Department system would he desirable would probably be considered by the Royal Commission on Education then sitting; and whether, seeing that the Report of the Royal Commission (Final Report, part iv., chapter 4, page 162) is favourable to the inspection of workhouse schools being transferred to the Education Department, Her Majesty's Government contemplate taking any steps towards carrying out this transference?
§ MR. C. T. RITCHIEThe scheme of the Shoreditch Guardians was understood by the Local Government Board to be that the Guardians should provide a school which might be regarded as a Public Elementary School, and be subject to all the conditions prescribed by the Code of the Education Department, and that a grant should be made in respect of the school in like manner as in the case of Voluntary Schools and schools provided by School Boards. The Royal Commission on the Education Acts have not made any such recommendation. It is true that the case of workhouse children was, as the Commissioners state incidentally, brought under their attention, and that their Report is favourable to the inspection of workhouse schools by Inspectors of the Education Department instead of Inspectors specially appointed for the purpose by the Local Government Board. I may, however, observe that no witness was called before the Commission to state the views of the Local Government Board on this question, and they do not appear to have had brought before them the 1046 fact that the arrangement which they suggest had been previously tried, and that it was discontinued in consequence of difficulties which arose in connection with it, and, further, that a Committee of this House had inquired in 1884 into the subject, and reported that they saw no reason for altering the present responsibility for workhouse schools. I cannot promise that steps will be taken for the transfer of inspection of these schools as suggested.
§ MR. STUARTI shall call attention to this matter on the Estimates.