§ MR. MACALEESEI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Commissioners of National Education (Ireland) allowed their examiners on the geometry paper to outstep the requirements of the old programme for second class candidates at the Teachers' Examinations, July 1897, whereby the candidates were deprived of 20 marks owing to the insertion of one of the questions on this paper being selected from the exercises of the third Book of Euclid, which the candidates were not required to know; whether he will provide that those candidates who failed to attain the necessary percentage entitling them to promotion (owing to the fault of the examiner on this subject) be immediately promoted; and whether he will call upon the Commissioners of National Education to make a similar ruling as regards the July examinations of 1898, the examiners on the geometry paper of that year having out stepped the programme in setting questions 1 and 7 to second class candidates; or will the Commissioners make this a 60 n-stead of 100 marks paper, and order a thorough revision of all the answer papers of those candidates who failed on the geometry paper?
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURThe paper set in geometry to candidates for second class at the examination on the old programme in 1897 did not outstep the requirements of the programme for that class. In the geometry paper set for the same class of candidates in 1898, two of the questions might be considered outside the strict limits of the course laid down, but the remaining eight questions (five only being allowed to be attempted) afforded ample scope for the exhibition of the necessary knowledge. In fact, only two teachers failed in geometry on the latter, as on the former occasion, and a careful revision of those teachers' exercises showed their almost complete ignorance of the subject. No further action is considered necessary by the Commissioners in this matter.