Lord Sandon's Bill for revindicating the greater number of the
old grammar-schools for the Church of England, and for com- mitting the supervision of their regeneration to the Charity Commission, was carried through its second reading on Tuesday night with a high hand,—both Mr. Forster and Mr. Gladstone making very powerful speeches against it, the latter indeed a speech of extraordinary force. Lord Sandon made a very sharp. attack on the Endowed Schools Commission, of whom he said that they were simply " dead " beyond power of revival, killed partly by the hostility of the Nonconformists, partly by the cold- ness of their own familiar friends, and partly, he intimated, by their own misdeeds. He could not revive them, and he proposed to add their duties to those of the Charity Commissioners, adding also two fresh Commissioners expressly for educational purposes. As for annexing the duties of the Commission to the Edu- cation Department, the Duke of Richmond and he had: far too much to do to leave them time for seeing the number of deputations which would be necessary. As for gaining back for the Church all the foundations in which there was any indication that the purpose of the founders was to give a good- Church teaching, that was merely a natural extension of Mr. Forster's policy. The Dissenters had attacked the Church, and must expect to have the guns of the fortress pointed against them,—and for so pointing them Lord Sandon had given orders.
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