The Law of Public Education in England and Wales :
a Practical Guide to its Administration. By G. Edwardes Jones, Barrister- at-Law, and J. C. G. Sykes. (Rivingtons. 21s. net.)—This volume, which covers exhaustively the whole range of modern public educa- tion, and deals in elaborate detail with the innumerable questions of administration that must in future arise in connection with both primary and secondary education, is the fullest, and in some ways the best, of the many works which the Act of 1902 has called forth. The vastness of the subject of modern education may perhaps be grasped from the fact that the authors' of this volume of over eight hundred pages deal with no less than a hundred and sixty-nine statutes, apart from the innumerable official publications issued for the purpose of interpreting and facilitating the administrative system evolved by Parliament. The book is divided into four divisions. The first • deals ex- haustively in the course of a hundred and eighty-six pages with the Act of last year. The notes seem to us, as far as we have been able to test them, admirably done. The difficult financial provisions of Section 10 are illustrated in a manner that will prove invaluable.. We must, however, note that though an effort has been made to explain by reference to cases the obscure phrase "fair wear and tear" in. Clause 7, yet, as in all the other books, the most instructive cases have been overlooked. It will doubtless be useful if we give these cases, and so enable our readers to supplement this universal omission. The most weighty case is American, and was decided in 1845: "Green v. Kelly " (New Jersey Reports, Vol. XX—Law—p. 644). The case of " The Manchester Bonded Warehouse Company, Limited, v. Carr" (5 C.P.D. 507) is also most important. The case of " Davies v. Davies " (38 C.D. 499), quoted in this book, is almost certainly bad law ; and the case of " Torriano v. Young " (6 C. & P. p. 9) must be supplemented by " Yellowby v. Gower " (11 Exch. 274) ; " Proudfoot v. Hart" (25 Q.B.D. 43) is also of value. Division II. devotes a hundred and seventy-eight pages to the principal Elementary Education Acts from 1870 to 1901, and the Technical Instruction Acts. Division III. giVes about two hundred pages to the Acts relating to educational endowments, dealing in great elaboration with the secondary education work of the Board of Educa- tion, with the Grammar School and Endowed School legisla- tion, with the Charitable Trusts Acts, Mortmain Acts, and the School Sites Acts. Division IV. in the remaining two hundred pages deals with minor Acts and minutes, rules and orders, relating to public education. These include the Day School Code, 1903, and the Revised Instructions, the Regulations for Secondary Day Schools and Evening Schools, and orders relating to the Consultative Committee and Teachers' Registra- tion. Mr. Jones and Mr. Sykes are to be congratulated on the production of this authoritative and important work.
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