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SCHOOLS IN CONNEXION WITH ESTABLISHED CHURCH.

General Report, by J. Gordon, Esq.; with Special Reports appended, on Aber-
deen Female Orphan Asylum and Milne's School at Fochabers

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CORRESPONDENCE, &c.

"Management-Clauses" for insertion in Trust Deeds of National and Church of England Schools.

FURTHER CORRESPONDENCE WITH COMMITTEE OF NATIONAL SOCIETY.*

(No. 13.)

National Society's Office, Sanctuary, Westminster, 26 July 1849

SIR, I had the honor to receive your letter of the 26th May, relative to the Management Clauses, and also that of the 18th ultimo, enclosing a copy of the Clauses, A, B, C, and D, with certain amendments which the Committee of Council on Education have directed their legal advisers to introduce. I have laid both those letters, together with the amended Clauses, before the Committee of the National Society.

The Committee direct their Lordships' attention to the omission of the Form of Declaration, to be subscribed by Communicant Managers, viz., "I, A B, do solemnly and sincerely declare, that I am, and have been for three years last past, a Communicant of the Church of England," as contained in paragraph seven of the letter addressed to the Lord President of the Council, on the 5th July 1848, and assented to by their Lordships on the 31st of the same month.

The Committee would also observe, that it seems to them necessary that a provision should be inserted, to the effect that any decision of the Bishop or of the appellate tribunal, declaring a Teacher unfit for his office, should operate as an immediate dismissal, and disqualify him from being re-appointed.

The Committee desire again to acknowledge the considerate spirit in which many of their suggestions have been received, but they cannot admit the justice of the condition proposed by their Lordships, which requires that one half of the expenses of erecting a school shall have been collected in the parish or vicinage, before the promoters can apply for the adoption of Clause D, in places containing more than 700 inhabitants. In poor

and destitute districts such a condition could not be complied with, and in fact it is rarely fulfilled in any cases of application for aid to the Committee of Council and the National Society; and therefore the Committee cannot consider it to be the proper Continued from page 34, in volume of Minutes of Committee of Council on Edutation, for 1848-9, presented to Parliament in Session of 1849.

test of the earnestness of the local feeling in the cause of education. In most cases, indeed, the deficiency of local subscriptions affords the strongest proof that Clauses A and B are inapplicable.

On the present occasion, however, the attention of the Committee of Council on Education is especially recalled to the remarks addressed to their Lordships, by the Committee, on the 12th May last, on the subject of local freedom, in determining the constitution of Church-Schools. They there expressed their apprehension, that the improvements introduced into the Clauses under discussion, important as they are, would not suffice to reestablish general confidence until greater liberty should be conceded to local founders. This apprehension has since been confirmed by the proceedings at the Annual Meeting of the Society, at which the dissatisfaction they anticipated was strongly and unequivocally declared. The Committee are not bound by the terms of their Charter to act on any resolution passed by the Annual Meeting of the Society; but they see more and more clearly, as well from the result of that meeting as from communications made to them from various quarters, the difficulty of constructing Management Clauses which may safely be imposed upon the founders of Church-Schools, as indispensable conditions of State assistance. They foresee that the attempt to impose such Clauses will interfere with the attainment of the great object which the Committee of Council on Education and the National Society are alike pledged to support that of educating the body of the people by means of local and voluntary efforts, aided by contributions from the public treasury.

The Committee, therefore, strongly urge their Lordships to re-consider the general question of local freedom, and to allow the Clauses in question to be regarded, as originally proposed, in the light of recommendations, and not as necessary conditions.

The Committee think it their duty to call special attention to the widely spread feeling that local founders, where they unequivocally desire it, should be permitted to provide for a general appeal to the Bishop of the Diocese. Although they are disposed to believe that the appellate tribunal, proposed by their Lordships, for questions not relating to religious and moral instruction, will be found satisfactory in its results, they are bound to add, that they do not see on what ground a general appeal to the Diocesan can be regarded as so unreasonable a provision that, if the promoters of a School, laity as well as clergy, unite to desire its insertion in their Trust-Deed, they should solely on that account be excluded from all share in the parliamentary grant.

The Committee beg to repeat their suggestion, which seems to have been misapprehended by their Lordships, that no minute regulating the distribution of the public grant for the purposes of education should be valid, and that no systematic recommendation should be urged upon applicants to the Committee of Council, on

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