§ SIR F. S. POWELLI beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he is prepared to state the grounds for his refusal of permission to the managers of the National school at Stoke Mandeville to re-open the school as a school upon the annual grant list; and whether he will re-consider his decision?
§ MR. ACLANDThis National school, which was the only elementary school in the parish, and 886 had long been in an unsatisfactory state, was closed on the 2nd June, 1892. After the publication of notices, and every opportunity being given for the supply of the deficiency by voluntary effort, a School Board was formed last January for the purpose of supplying the deficiency. The duty of doing so devolved thenceforth on the Board by Statute, and the Department have no power to accept any provision other than that made by the Board. I may add, however, in order to show the nature of the supply which the Department were asked to accept, that when the vicar of Stoke Mandeville announced at the end of last May that he had re-opened his school, Her Majesty's Inspector sent his assistant to visit it on the 6th June. He found a very bad state of things: for instance, 11 children were sitting on the floor round the master's chair with reading books in their hands, and in a class room, 14 feet by 10, 25 infants were in charge of a boy of eight years old. On inquiring who taught sowing, he was informed that it was not being taught at all. Her Majesty's Inspector added that the building is very badly lighted and ventilated; that there is no proper cloak room; that the offices, which are close to the school, are on a bad system and not separated or lighted, and that the class room in which the 25 infants wore crowded is too small to be used for teaching.
§ MR. BARTLEYArising out of that answer, may I ask if the failure to teach sewing is sufficient to justify the closing of a school?
§ MR. ACLANDNo, Sir; and that is not the reason why the school was closed. There was a deficiency of accommodation, and as, after a lapse of several months, the managers failed to supply it, the duty of the Department became obvious, and a School Board was formed in order to supply the deficiency.