§ MR. J. RAMSAY MACDONALDI beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether the information in the possession of the Education Department regarding the endowments available in England and Wales for secondary education is sufficiently complete for any county or counties to be of use if published; and whether he will grant a Return giving such information.
§ THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. MCKENNA,) Monmouthshire, N.I regret very much that the information in the possession of 536 the Board is not at present collected into a form in which it could be usefully published, even for a single county. A Return of Endowments involves the examination and classification of a very large mass of material by persons possessing special technical knowledge, and, if it is to be efficiently and economically carried out, cannot be undertaken without due preparation. I have no doubt that a summary Return (on the lines of some Reports recently made relating to endowments applicable to purposes of elementary education in the counties of Stafford and Northants) would be of great value, and it is my intention to undertake the work as soon as possible. It will, however, be difficult to make much progress until the staff of the Board are transferred to the new offices.