§ MR. J. M. ROBERTSON (Northumberland, Tyneside)I beg to ask the President of the Board of Education whether, in view of the evidence of public feeling having been aroused in consequence of the protests of certain members of the Manchester City Council, the parent, and others in March last, against the stripping and birching of a boy at the Manchester Grammar School, he will issue an order prohibiting the stripping of boys without consent of the parents, for the purpose of inflicting corporal punishment, in all schools receiving grants from public funds derived from taxation.
§ MR. McKENNAThe Board of Education require to be satisfied that a school receiving grants from public funds is 529 properly conducted, and might insist on the alteration of a system of discipline of which they disapproved. But I do not think the case to which the hon. Member refers is one in which the Board should interfere with the discretion of the Governing Body and the headmaster, and it does not appear to me expedient to lay down a general rule on the subject.