§ LORD NORTONasked the President of the Council how many days the Education Code had already been laid on the Table without being printed and circulated; and what information would be given of rules to be laid down as to the qualification to be required for teachers of drawing in elementary schools. He said the new Education Code (which was issued every year), had lain on the Table for some days without their Lordships knowing anything about it. Every successive Vice President of the Council sought to immortalise himself by attaching his name to a new edition of the Code. This process of legislation by incubation, as it might be called, was very dangerous, even in trifling matters, but National Education was a most important subject, and in actual cost, including voluntary contributions, involving an expenditure of £10,000,000 10 annually, and it should not be left to Departmental treatment merely lying on the Table in dummy for 40 days. Parliament should not legislate in the dark on such a subject. Some of their Lordships, if they knew what the document was, might not wholly approve of it, or might wish to move it off the Table altogether. It was not only the Education Department in Whitehall which laid such eggs on the Table to hatch, but these rules and instructions relative to National Education collected together from no less than five different Departments of the State. In reference to drawing, they came from South Kensington. He was led to bring this matter before the House by a letter from a school manager in the Midlands asking him to get certain alterations made in the rules referring to drawing. He could not ascertain what was meant, as no paper on the subject was before the House. The Code itself did not comprise the whole subject by any means, for there were auxiliary regulations emanating from other Departments which did not appear in it at all. He begged now to be informed where to find the rules and regulations relating to drawing in Elementary Schools, and to the qualifications required for the teachers.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYMy Lords, I must say I agree with the noble Lord that it is not a convenient practice that the Code should be laid before Parliament and not distributed as soon as possible, for the reasons he has given. The Code was laid on the Table on the 27th of February. I will make further inquiry to see whether the distribution can be accelerated. It is intended to give an opportunity for discussion. No technical qualification is at present required for teachers of drawing in elementary schools. No change has been made in the new Code in this respect.