§ Mr. KINGasked the President of the Board of Education whether he is aware that the Royal Commission on Secondary Education, as shown on page 383 of volume IX. of their Report [Cd. 7862], made an estimate, based on the ascertained figures of representative areas in 1894, that the number of pupils in secondary schools who had been admitted from public elementary schools was about 25 per cent. of the total scholars; whether the Return of pupils in the secondary schools, from which the Board of Education could obtain information in 1897 [Cd. 8634], gave a total number of 291,544 pupils in such schools; whether these data suggest that about fifteen or twenty years ago the number of ex-public elementary school children in secondary schools in England and Wales was about 75,000; and whether, in the absence of an exact official record, he can suggest any material for a better estimate than these figures, and for an estimate of the number who were admitted free and the number who paid fees?
Mr. A. HENDERSONI am aware of the figures given in the Report and Return to which the question refers me, but I do not think that any useful purpose would be served by the attempt to use them as a basis for an estimate of the number of ex-public elementary school children in secondary schools in England and Wales in later years.