MR. LAWRENCEI beg to ask the Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education, whether the decrease of £1,500 on art grants covers the extra three months which have swelled the science grants in Class IV. to the amount of £20,000; whether his attention has been called to the fact that, in 1898, 60 per cent. of art students were presented for examination as against 56½ per cent. of science students, and that of the papers worked the percentage of success in art is 64¾ per cent. against 62¾ in science; whether the grants of £169,522 given to 185,000 science pupils, against only £72,178 given to 120,000 art pupils, are largely owing to higher attendance rates payable in science, and to science being allowed to reckon a maximum 1115 of 240 attendances per session against only 60 in art classes; and whether, having regard to this inequality, the Board of Education will reconsider the scale of payments of grants to art classes.
§ THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION (Sir J. GORST, Cambridge University)The answer to the first paragraph is that there is no decrease in art grants, but an increase of £3,500, as I explained last week.* The answer to the second paragraph is in the affirmative, and to the remaining two paragraphs in the negative.