which Parliament shall not previously have had the opportunity of expressing its opinion. Recent events must strengthen the desire of all thoughtful men, to give the people of this kingdom a sound Christian Education; and the Committee of the National Society are persuaded that, if the Committee of Council had the same opportunities with themselves of appreciating the extent to which jealousies would be removed, difficulties obviated, and a more general co-operation in this great work secured, by the compliance of their Lordships with the suggestions now urged upon their attention, they would not hesitate to adopt them. I have the honor to be, &c., REVEREND SIR, Committee of Council on Education, Privy Council Office, Downing Street, 13 August 1849. I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your letter dated the 26th ultimo, and to inform you that it has been laid before the Committee of Council on Education. Their Lordships assent to the Form of Declaration by which you propose to meet the case, where, by the terms of the Trust Deed, the Managers of the School are required to be communicants of the Church of England. With regard to the insertion of provisions to the effect that any decision of the Bishop or Arbitrators, declaring a Teacher unfit for his office, should operate as an immediate dismissal, and disqualify him from being re-appointed, my Lords are advised that this cannot be effected by any declaration in the Deed, prescribing generally what the law shall be in relation to the Teacher. All attempts to extend the operation of the Deed to contracts and transactions entered into independently of it, is an assumption of the powers of the Legislature, calculated to mislead the parties concerned into a belief, from the language of the Deed, that they are invested with rights and authorities which the law, if called in, might not support. The donor of the site, however, has power to prescribe conditions, regulating the rights to be enjoyed in the property which be conveys, and my Lords are advised that the operation of the additional provisions, now inserted, will be such as to enable the Trustees in whom the legal estate in the school premises will be rested, and who consequently will have a right of controlling the enjoyment and occupation of the premises, and of preventing them from being enjoyed or occupied otherwise than in conformity with the terms of the Deed, to eject any Master or Teacher whose dismissal shall have been awarded by the Bishop or Arbitrators, conformably to the terms of the Deed. The Act 4 and 5 Vict., Cap. 38, Sec. 7, (School Sites Act) allows unlimited discretion to the donor in the selection of such Trustees of the legal estate as he approves; nor has it been the practice of my Lords to interfere with this discretion, so long as the benefit of a corporate holding of the legal estate was secured. Ecclesiastical no less than lay corporations are open to the donor's choice. The Bishop of the Diocese, the Archdeacon, the Minister of the Parish, may each, or all of them, be selected for the Trusteeship. If therefore any Committee of Management should, in express defiance of the terms of the Deed under which they are appointed, neglect or refuse to dismiss a Teacher in pursuance of a decision of the Bishop or award of the Arbitrators, the Trustees of the legal estate are, independently of the Committee, invested with sufficient powers for the purpose. With regard to the conditions upon which clause D may be had in preference to A or B, and upon the subject of appeal on questions not relating to religious instruction, my Lords do not feel at liberty to admit further modifications. They confidently anticipate that the working of the system will not be found in practice to be such as to force unsuitable constitutions upon schools, or to withdraw from the exclusive control of the Church any matters in which spiritual interests only are concerned. In conclusion I am to express the earnest hope of the Committee of Council on Education, that the various modifications of the Management Clauses, to which my Lords have consented in the course of the present correspondence, may be sufficient to prove the sincere desire which they entertain for co-operation with the National Society, and to remove the most material causes of difference between the Society and my Lords, so far as to secure mutual acquiescence in the Clauses as now finally revised. I annex, by way of schedule, copies of the Clauses A, B, D, and C, in which the various alterations refered to in this letter are embodied. I have the honor to be, &c., (Signed) The Rev. J. G. Lonsdale, Secretary to the National Society. R. R. W. LINGEN, Acting Assistant Secretary. (No. 15.) SIR, National Society's Office, Sanctuary, Westminster, 11 December 1849. I am intructed by the Committee of the National Society to express to the Committee of Council on Education their conviction of the propriety of terminating their correspondence on the subject of the Management Clauses. The Committee of the National Society deeply regret the resolution finally adopted by the Committee of Council, to exclude from all share of the Parliamentary Grant for Education those schools the promoters of which are unwilling to constitute their trust-deeds on the model prescribed by their Lordships. The Committee are by no means insensible to the value of the modifications which have been adopted at their suggestion; but, so long as this resolution is maintained, they cannot acquiesce in the hope expressed by their Lordships, that the most material causes of difference between the Society and the Committee of Council are removed. The Committee of the National Society entered on the present negociation from an earnest desire-a desire which they still retain-to act in concert with their Lordships; and, to secure this end, were ready to acquiesce in any measures consistent with the principle which they have always maintained, that local views and feelings are to be studiously consulted. But since the Committee now find, to their deep regret and disappointment, that, if they are to co-operate with their Lordships in constituting School-trusts, they must be prepared to set aside the general principle of local freedom, and to treat the proposed Clauses as indispensable to the efficiency of all Church-Schools, they consider themselves under the necessity of resuming their original position. Leaving therefore to the Legislature the settlement of the terms on which the Parliamentary Vote shall be distributed, they see no other course for themselves, under existing circumstances, than to continue to vote grants according to the Charter of the Society, and, without joining in any recommendation of Management Clauses, to leave the promoters of schools either to adopt, or to decline, the proposed Government Clauses, provided they constitute their schools in a manner consistent with the Society's terms of union. I have the honor to be, &c., (Signed) The Secretary, Committee of Council on Education. (No. 16.) REVEREND SIR, Committee of Council on Education, Privy Council Office, Downing Street, 2 February 1850. I am directed by the Lord President of the Council to inform you that your letter, of the 11th of December 1849, has been laid before the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education, and that their Lordships have no further remark to make, beyond expressing their regret that the modifications adopted at the suggestion of the National Society have not enabled the Society to concur with the Committee of Council so completely as their Lordships could have wished, in their decision on the subject of the correspondence. I have the honor to be, &c., The Rev. J. G. Lonsdale, R. R. W. LINGEN. Copies of "Management Clauses," A, B, D, and C, as further revised on and after transmission of foregoing letter dated 13 August 1849. Management Clause-A. AND it is hereby declared that the said school shall be at all times open to the inspection of the Inspector or Inspectors of Schools for the time being appointed in conformity with the Order in Council bearing date the 10th day of August 1840 and shall always be in union with and conducted according to the principles and in furtherance of the ends and designs of the National Society for promoting the Education of the Poor in the principles of the Established Church throughout England and Wales and subject to and For insertion in Trust Deeds of Church of England Schools. ted when it is not in National Society. in conformity with the declaration aforesaid the said school *The words printed and premises and the funds and present endowments thereof in Italic are to be omitand such future endowments in respect whereof no other tended to place the disposition shall be made by the donor shall be directed School in union with the controlled governed and managed in manner hereinafter specified that is to say the principal officiating Minister for the time being of the said (parish) or (ecclesiastical district) shall have the superintendence of the religious and moral instruction of all the scholars attending the school with power to use or direct the premises to be used for the purposes of a Sunday school under his exclusive control and management. But in all other respects the management direction control and government of the school and premises and of the funds and endowments thereof and the selection appointment and dismissal of the schoolmaster and schoolmistress and their assistants (except when under the provisions hereinafter mentioned the dismissal of any master mistress or assistant shall be awarded by the Bishop of the Diocese or the Arbitrators as the case may be) shall be vested in and exercised by a Committee consisting of the principal officiating minister for the time being of the said (parish) or (ecclesiastical district) his licensed curate or curates if the minister shall appoint him or them to be a member or members of the Committee such of the church or chapel wardens for the time being of the said (parish) or (ecclesiastical district) as shall bet (members) or (communicants) of the Church of England + Omit and of members 04 other communicants, as the case may require. It is to make the Church or Chapel War personst (members) or (communicants) of the said church optional with the Prohaving a beneficial interest to the extent of a life estate at the moters least in real property situated in the said (parish) or (eccle- dens ex officio members of siastical district) or being residents in the said (parish) or the Committee. (ecclesiastical district) or in a Parish or Ecclesiastical District adjoining thereto and being contributors in the It may be considered to adopt current year to the amount of twenty shillings each at the desirable purely parochial constileast to the funds of the school And the last-mentioned tution for the School, when duly persons shall be elected annually in the month of qualified managers can be found a |