§ MR. BAKER (Portsmouth)I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education by whose authority, and under what regulation (if any) of the Education Department, the children of the Board schools in the parishes of Denmead and Hambledon, in the County of Hants, are inarched to the public services of the Church of England on Ash Wednesdays and on Church festivals; and, if such practices are contrary to the law, will he take the necessary steps to have them discontinued?
§ MR. ACLANDThese two schools are only transferred to the Board for use on certain days, and Ash Wednesday, together with other Church festivals, is expressly excluded from the transfer. But the Board appear, by permission of the managers, to have held a meeting of the school on Ash Wednesday. The Board, in respect of the details of that meeting, violated the Time Table, and no religious instruction in the school was given on that day. Although it is contended by the managers that at the conclusion of the secular instruction the school was dismissed, it is obvious that the children may have attended church under the impression that such attendance was part of the school meeting. The attention of the Board has been called to the matter, and I understand that there will be no repetition of this irregularity.