out those scholars whom you consider to be intellectually best qualified, and it will be the duty of the clergyman and managers, or of the managers, to make known their comparative moral and religious qualifications. The inspector and the local authorities must therefore practically concur in the recommendation of the candidate for the office of pupil-teacher or stipendiary monitor.

The explanations in the last paragraph do not apply to the class of schools which are admitted to the benefits of their Lordships' grants by the Supplementary Minute of July 10th, 1847.

According to the terms of their Lordships' Minutes, the pupilteachers and stipendiary monitors of each school are to be selected from the scholars of that school.

Under ordinary circumstances a teacher who has not prepared any of his scholars to pass the examination of a candidate for apprenticeship ought not to be permitted to receive a pupil-teacher, and his school would generally be an unfit place for the training of an apprentice.

Exceptions may, however, be found to this rule. A teacher of undoubted merit, skill, and attainments, may have entered a school too recently to have had time to raise the instruction of the scholars to the proper standard; or a good teacher may have been overwhelmed with an excess of labour, on account of the want of assistance.

These cases are to be regarded as exceptions to the general rule, and may be brought before their Lordships by a special report. As a temporary arrangement, their Lordships will also, during this year, be disposed to receive special reports on the apprenticeship of other children than the scholars in those schools in which the majority of the scholars work in silk, cotton, flax, or woollen factories or in printworks.

When you have determined which scholars are most eligible for apprenticeship, it will be necessary, when the parish is isolated, that you should complete the examination of the candidates before proceeding to another school. But when several schools applying for apprentices lie within a moderate distance of a town, my Lords request you to pursue the following course. You will take down the names of the most eligible scholars, and appoint a day on which they may be assembled with other candidates from neighbouring schools, in order that their comparative qualifications may be determined, by an examination in accordance with their Lordships' Minutes. For this purpose it is desirable to procure the use of some public room in the town, or other central place, in which the candidates may be assembled for examination.

Your report on each school will, of course, be separately made. This report, and the examination papers accompanying it, will be considered in this department; and if their Lordships should confirm your recommendation, the indenture of apprenticeship will

be filled up here, and transmitted to the managers of the school, to be duly executed by all the parties interested.

Besides cases thus arising out of the explanations which you are requested to make during your visits to each school, applications for the apprenticeship of pupil-teachers and stipendiary monitors may also be made to the Committee of Council by the managers of other schools, many of which may not have previously been under inspection. When the preliminary inquiries are completed, my Lords will, from time to time, transmit such applications to you, and will authorize you, if necessary, temporarily to withdraw from the route of inspection which you would otherwise have pursued. You will then make arrangements to visit each of these schools, and to report upon it in reference to the application for apprentices, and will afterwards resume your tour of inspection.

In all such cases, it is desirable that you should give ten days' notice to the school managers, requesting their attendance and that of the parents of the most proficient and deserving scholars. You will be furnished with forms for this purpose.

In those cases in which the schools have not been erected with aid from the Parliamentary grants, it will be necessary that you should examine and report upon the accuracy of the statements made by the applicants as to the condition of the school-buildings, and the tenure and trusts upon which the site is held.

Various subordinate questions have arisen as to the administration of the Parliamentary grant under the Minutes of August and December, 1846, and I am directed by the Lord President to furnish you with the following account of the course which is to be pursued, in accordance with the precedents established in this department.

1. Tenure of School Buildings.

In the appropriation of grants for the erection of school buildings, attention has been paid to the tenure of the site and to the structure of the school deed, especially in everything that could affect the permanency and good management of the trust. The majority of schools erected with aid from the public funds are secured by valid conveyances, and in a great number of them clauses are inserted providing for the management of the school, and defining the powers and duties of those to whom it is confided. The objects sought to be secured are-1. Permanency; 2. Efficient management.

Many applications for aid under the recent Minutes have, however, already been received from schools not erected with aid from the Government. These applications include the following classes of schools:

1. Schools erected by landed proprietors and held as private property, but practically devoted to education, with a prospect of permanency.

2. Schools held in buildings which, though not erected for spiritual uses, stand upon sites conveyed on trusts for Divine worship.

3. Schools held in deserted chapels or oratories, or other ecclesiastical buildings erected on consecrated ground, and which cannot, therefore, be conveyed for the purposes of education alone.

4. Schools held in buildings, either on a tenancy from year to year, or on a very short lease in which no trusts are declared, or merely in a room temporarily hired.

5. Schools held in rooms under churches or chapels, and forming part of the fabric of such buildings.

6. Schools held on conveyances which contain powers of sale or mortgage, or authorize the application of the building to purposes not educational.

7. Endowed schools, of which no deed or terrier exists, but which are managed by reputed trustees, appointing their

successors.

The Committee of Council will, in all such cases, require the following preliminary conditions:

1. That the schoolrooms be of sufficient size and height, well ventilated, warmed, and supplied with school furniture, apparatus, and books.

2. That the school room be not liable to any uses likely to interfere with or disturb its occupation during the ordinary hours of schoolkeeping, or to occasion a sudden termination of its employment for education.

3. That the proprietor, trustees, or managers of the schools sign an agreement, that, if the schoolroom cannot by reason of the nature of the trusts of the deed or otherwise continue to be appropriated to the education of the poor during the apprenticeship of the pupil-teacher, the amount of the stipends of the apprentices, and gratuities to the teachers, shall be repaid on the occurrence of every such interruption.

These preliminary conditions will apply to all these cases, and in certain of them it may be necessary to require the following special conditions:

1. Where schools are built on sites held in trust for Divine worship, the trustees must enter into an agreement or bond that, where the trusts of the deed do not interfere to prevent it, the building shall be open from half-past eight o'clock in the morning to half-past five o'clock in the evening of five days at least in the week, and half of another day, if need be, for the instruction of the children of the poor, without any interruption whatsoever.

2. Where schools are held in deserted chapels or oratories, or other ecclesiastical buildings erected on consecrated ground, the

consent of the bishop must be obtained to the appropriation of the building to the education of the poor.

3. Their Lordships would refuse to award any grants to schools held in rooms on the precarious tenure of a yearly occupation or a short lease, with the contingencies arising from the powers of distress and re-entry for rent. Such cases present the complication of an inability to provide a permanent fabric, with the burthen of an annual rent on resources confessedly inadequate. It is obviously politic to place every encouragement on the side of efforts to provide that best form of endowment, substantial and convenient buildings, and to avoid the often fatal embarrassment of an annual demand for rent from inadequate funds. If, therefore, the payment of rent were superadded to the want of permanency of tenure, that burthen has such a tendency to increase the insecurity and diminish the efficiency of the school, that it would form a fatal objection to assistance under the recent Minutes.

4. Where schools are held in rooms under churches or chapels, the difficulty of distinguishing between eeclesiastical or other spiritual and purely educational uses must be greatly augmented. Their Lordships have refused to make school-building grants in such cases, and the necessity of maintaining a wide distinction between grants for education and grants for the maintenance of religion requires, that no aid should be given to schools held in

such rooms.

5. Where schools have been erected by landed proprietors and are held as private property, or, where otherwise erected, are held on conveyances which contain powers of sale or mortgage, or authorize the application of the building to purposes not educational, and in endowed schools, it may be sufficient to require an agree ment from the proprietor, trustees, or managers, that if the schoolrooms cannot, by reason of the nature of the trusts of the deed or otherwise, continue to be appropriated to the education of the poor during the apprenticeship of the pupil-teacher, the amount of the stipends for the apprenticeship and gratuities to the teachers shall be repaid on the occurrence of every such interruption.

When an augmentation of salary is granted to the master or mistress, the use of the schoolroom and dwelling-house free from rent for five years, or during the longer continuance of the augmentation, must be secured by an agreement if not otherwise guaranteed.

Tenure of Master's or Mistress's House.

One of the conditions on which their Lordships have agreed to provide an augmentation of salary to a master or mistress who has, upon examination, obtained their certificate, is, "that the trustees and managers of the school shall provide the master with a house rent free.'

The greater part of the school-buildings erected with aid from the Parliamentary grant probably comprise convenient residences for the teachers; but the majority of those not so erected are without masters' houses. Inquiries have therefore been made whether their Lordships would be satisfied, if, in addition to the salary required to be provided, the trustees and managers were to supply the master with a convenient house, rent free, though it might not be the property of the trustees.

The objections to this arrangement are, that its acceptance may interfere with the erection of suitable dwellings for the teachers; that the hired house will probably not be so conveniently situated as one built expressly for the purpose; and that the rent of this house forms an annual burthen on the school, which would not exist if a proper building were erected.

Notwithstanding these objections, their Lordships are unwilling to refuse to admit this mode of fulfilling the condition of their grants in the augmentation of teachers' salaries, as a temporary arrangement, but they will promote the erection of teachers' houses by building-grants, and will hereafter withdraw this provisional regulation.

The minimum of accommodation to be provided should be a parlour, kitchen, scullery, and two bedrooms; but in school-building grants their Lordships will require that three bedrooms be provided.

Certain other regulations, relating to the parochial teachers of Scotland, may be more conveniently set forth in a subsequent part of this letter.

3. Inspection.

All schools aided with grants towards their erection, enlargement, or towards the supply of school furniture, have, either by a clause in the conveyance, or by an indorsement thereon, or by a memorial under the provisions of the 7th and 8th Vict., cap. 37, secured to the Committee of Council the power of visiting and examining the school by means of their inspectors.

Where schools receive aid towards their annual expenses only, the trustees and managers will be required to sign an agreement that so long as this aid is continued, or the apprenticeship of any pupil-teacher or stipendiary monitor is unexpired, the school shall be open to the visits of Her Majesty's inspectors.

4. Pupil Teachers and Stipendiary Monitors.

Several inquiries have been made as to the interpretation of their Lordships' Minutes in certain particulars.

A. Under the qualifications of candidates, it is stated that they must not be liable to any bodily infirmity likely to impair their usefulness as pupil-teachers.

Their Lordships have decided that the following interpretation