§ MR. MORRELL (Oxfordshire, Woodstock)To ask the Secretary to the Board of Education whether any instructions have been issued bearing on Article 78 of the Provisional Code of 1903 under which a child may be refused admission to a public elementary school on other than reasonable grounds; whether the intervention of a county boundary between the residence of a child and the nearest school available for that child is a reasonable ground for refusal to admit such child to a public elementary school in an adjoining county; and, whether, if in such a public elementary school, on
†These ask for the co-option of a larger number of women.452 the annual grant list, and free, there is an unoccupied place, one local authority may charge another a fee for the external child coming in to the school over the county boundary.(Answered by Sir William Anson.) In answer to the first paragraph no instructions have been issued on the subject. In answer to the second paragraph, the fact that a county boundary intervened between the residence of a child and the nearest available school would not in itself be held to constitute a reasonable ground for refusing to admit such child under Article 78; but each case would be considered on its merits. In reply to the third paragraph, if the school was one not entitled to charge fees, the local authority would have no power to charge a fee in respect of a child residing outside its area, but in cases where outside children attended in such numbers as to throw an appreciable charge on the funds of the school-owning authority, the Board of Education would support that authority in refusing admission unless the local authority of the area within which the children resided was prepared to enter into an agreement with the school-owning authority under Section 52 of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, to contribute towards the expense of maintaining the school.