Sir John Lubbock moved on Wednesday the second reading of
a Bill for amending the Endowed Schools' Act of 1869 on two points,—for making the fifty years after which any educational endowment may be revised by the State, a running period, instead -of a period ending with a fixed date (as it does at present at the year 1869 when the Endowed Schools' Act was passed), and again for re- pealing the clause in the Bill of 1869, which allows schools expressly founded for religious purposes to retain conditions as to the re- ligious creed of the Governors, and as to the character of the reli- gions teaching to be given to the boarders,—for day scholars, even in such schools, were to have the protection of a conscience clause. Sir John gave a very good reason for the first change, which, in- .deed, is certain to be carried at some not distant day ; but he made the mistake of giving no interval during which a school already re- formed should not be liable to further reforms. Thus, if a school with three or four distinct endowments, of which the first was fifty years old in 1869, the second in 1872, the third in 1875, and the fourth in 1878, were reformed, the Commission would have to frame a scheme dealing only with the first endowment now ; but next year, and again in 1875 and 1878, there would be the right to amend the scheme, and so the school would have no rest. Clearly the fifty years should be counted first op to 1869, then to 1879, and so on for every decennial period, but should not run out from year to year. This slight mistake was fatal to Sir John Lubbock's reform.
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