§ DR. CAMERON (Glasgow, College)I beg to ask the Lord. Advocate whether his attention has been called to the fact that the education grant earned last year by the public schools under the Rothesay School Board, having again amounted to more than half the expenditure upon them, the School Board has again resolved, rather than forego the surplus, to increase their expenditure by dividing the balance as a bonus among the teachers; whether he is aware that the higher class schools under the control of the same Board are carried on at a loss; and whether in view of the increased surplus anticipated by the Board for the current year, and the desire expressed by the Government to promote secondary education in Scotland, it could be arranged that the surplus grant earned by the public schools should be applied in reduction of the loss on the higher class schools, instead of being expended on bonuses 953 devised for the avowed object of evading the restrictions imposed upon the payment of the grant?
§ *SIR C. J. PEARSONI am not aware of anything peculiar in the financial position of the two schools under the Rothesay School Board, and from the balance sheets for both the schools for the year ending 31st March, 1891, it appears that in the case of one, the Parliamentary grant was very considerably less, and in the case of the other slightly less, than half the expenditure. The Scotch Education Department has not yet received the accounts of either of the schools under the Rothesay School Board for the school year just ended. I understand that these are the only schools under the management of the School Board, which has no higher class under its management. Section 20 of the Education Act of 1876, which applies to Scotland, provides that the income of schools sharing in the Parliamentary grant "shall be applied only for the purpose of public elementary schools."