§ Mr. GINNELLasked what are the qualifications for benefiting by the Preston educational endowment; to what is the fact due that about £1,000 a year is being spent on the education of thirty pupils; and, if any existing qualification debars intelligent pupils, whether such qualification will be dispensed with?
§ Mr. DUKEIn accordance with schemes under the Educational Endowment (Ireland) Act, 1885, the income of the Preston endowment is divisible between the Meath Diocesan Board of Education, the Abbeyleix Local School Authority, and the Governors of King's Hospital, Oxmantown, Dublin. The amount so divided 1453W last year was £874 14s. 9d., and a number of pupils on the rolls of the three schools sharing in the endowment—Preston School, Navan; Preston School, Abbeyleix; and King's Hospital, Oxmantown, was 115. In addition to maintaining the Preston School, Navan, out of their portion of the endowment, the Meath Diocesan Board of Education have adopted a scheme for granting, if and whenever they shall think it expedient, free and assisted scholarships to the Protestant children of Navan and of the diocese of Meath in intermediate or other schools approved of by that Board. Scholarships under this scheme have already been granted. So far as the Commissioners of Education in Ireland are aware the only qualification for benefiting by the endowment are (1) attending any of the schools sharing in the endowment, or (2) winning one of the scholarships of the Meath Diocesan Board of Education.