1 OCTOBER 1932, Page 16

ECONOMY AND EDUCATION

[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Your excellent article on this subject seems to me likely in one part to create misapprehension. The last sentences suggest, if they do not actually state, that under the new regulations for Free Places a parent whose income exceeds the limit laid down in the circular, of £3 to £4 a week, will be required to pay the whole fee at a secondary school. This is not so. All that is laid down is that a parent with a higher income should not receive total exemption, and so far as this particular circular goes there is nothing to prevent a local authority giving such a parent exemption from nine-tenths or more of the fee. The Board are, as a matter of fact, issuing further suggestions as to a scale of partial exemptions for in- comes considerably higher than those above mentioned. These will have to be scrutinized carefully and possibly may be found not to be sufficiently generous ; but the. principle which they entail, of a carefully graded scale of partial relief is, I believe, [Our words were meant to bear the interpretation o:ir correspondent gives them, but it is well to have the po,ition made perfectly clear.—En. Spectator.]