VISCOUNT CRANBQRNE (Rochester)I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether his attention has been called to a Circular issued by the National Education Association, urging parents to demand free education, and stating that parents whose children are paying no fee in their present standard may demand a free school if fees are charged in the higher standards; the school must be free from top to bottom, or the Department will not recognise it as a free school; whether, under the Act of 1891, parents are entitled to anything more than free education for their own children; and whether, as a matter of fact, it is the practice of the Department upon a single such demand to insist upon the provision of a school "free from top to bottom"?
§ MR. ACLANDMy attention has not been called to this Circular till now. I am afraid the noble Lord has misunderstood the meaning of the words "from top to bottom." You can have a school free from top to bottom for a single child, and that is evidently what is meant. It is most necessary to insist on this, for the Department have actually had cases before them in which managers have practically said to a parent—"There are free places in this school, but only in the first standard. The child can have free education, but as long as you do not pay fees the child shall stay in the first standard." This is a mere evasion of the Act, hence the need for insisting on freedom from top to bottom.