§ MR. E. FLOWER (Bradford, W.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has decided to abandon the principle of religious classification of children in industrial schools laid down in the circular letter of the Secretary of State to the Clerks of Justices of the Peace, dated the 14th of February, 1888, and confirmed by a subsequent letter of the 30th of January, 1892, to the senior Metropolitan Police magistrate; if so, will he state the reasons for such change; and whether he has directed the London School Board to amend the rules of the Brentwood Industrial School accordingly?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir. M. W. RIDLEY,) Lancashire, N., BlackpoolThe letters referred to did not lay down or profess to lay down any principle of religious classification. They merely contained a request to justices, based on reasons of administrative convenience, that in sending children to these schools they should state in the order the particular denomination to which the child belongs, the word Protestant not being distinctive enough for the purpose. This has nothing to do with the Question in the case of the Brentwood School rules—which was that, as the school was not intended for the reception of Roman Catholics or Jews, it would be desirable that the rule specifying the class of children to be received should state this, and for this purpose Protestant is the usual and most convenient word.