§ MR. STEVENSON (Suffolk, Lye)I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether the attention of the Board of Education has been called to the dismissal without cause assigned, by the Court of Governors of Merchant Taylors School, on the recommendation of the headmaster, of three assistant masters of twenty-five, twenty-three, and twelve years service respectively: whether the practice of the Court of Governors to give pensions to masters who are not otherwise provided for has been in this case departed from; and if so, whether any reasons have been given for such departure from the usual practice; whether the Board of Education has any jurisdiction over the school by reason of its endowment, 538 and will make any representation to the Court of Governors on the subject; and whether the Board will consider the desirability of inserting in future in schemes for endowed schools a clause giving to assistant masters reasonable security against arbitrary dismissal.
§ MR. LEES KNOWLESI beg at the same time to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether the Merchant Taylors' School has ever been regarded by the Board of Education as an endowed school; whether the Governors have the right in their absolute discretion to require the retirement of any assistant master if they consider it to be for the good of the school; whether it has ever been the practice of the Court to gram pensions to masters except in very exceptional cases; whether the Court framed some years ago a superannuation scheme for the masters of the school; and whether two of the three masters who have recently retired preferred not to join such scheme and upon retirement received gratuities, and the third master, who had joined it, received upon retirement a sufficient sum to enable him to meet the annual payments under the scheme.
§ THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION (Sir JOHN GORST,) Cambridge UniversityThe Board of Education have no official information as to the statements in paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Questions of the hon. Member for the Eye Division and the statements of the hon. Member for Salford. Paragraph 3 of the first Question asks the opinion of the Board of Education on a point of law which can probably be decided only by an appeal to the Courts. The Board of Education would make no representation till assured of its jurisdiction. As to paragraph 4, the Board of Education have never yet succeeded in devising any plan of appeal which could in their judgment be properly inserted in a scheme.
§ MR. LEES KNOWLESI should like to refer the right hon. Gentleman to the first paragraph of my Question, as 539 to whether the school has ever been regarded by the Board of Education as an endowed school.
§ SIR JOHN GORSTThat is the very question upon which the jurisdiction of the Charity Commissioners depends—whether it is an endowed school or not. It is a question full of intricacies, and nobody can with certainty say if this is an endowed school, until an appeal to the Courts is decided. During such a state of uncertainty, the Board has formed no opinion at all on the matter.
§ MR. STEVENSONDoes the Board of Education propose to take any steps to ascertain the limits and nature of the jurisdiction of the Board, if any.
§ SIR JOHN GORSTNo. The Board of Education knows the limits of its jurisdiction; but there is a nice point of law involved, whether a particular school is an endowed school or not, and there is no particular reason why the Board should take steps to determine this point, until a question arises on which the jurisdiction of the Board is necessary.