§ MR. T. W. RUSSELLI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the industrial rule of the National Board of Education is compulsory or optional; and if managers desiring their schools to be exempt from the rule are liable to have it forced upon them by the Board?
MR. J. MORLEYThe Commissioners of National Education report that the rule determining instruction in the new industrial programme is not absolute. No manager who is able, giving due notice, to assign a satisfactory reason for having his school exempted, is refused. The number of schools in which the Commissioners for various reasons assigned by managers have dispensed with the alternative scheme for sixth-class girls is very considerable.