The eightieth general meeting of the members . of the National
Society met in the Broad Sanctuary on Tuesday, to consider the Free Education Bill. The first objection urged to it was, that the Bill proposes to perpetuate the limit of 17s. 6d. as the maximum departmental grant, which is no longer, it is said, about half the cost of education, though when it was first raised to 17s. 6d., that was regarded as about half the cost of education. The linait ought to be raised. .The second objection was, that 10s., calculated on the average attendance, cloes not cover a 3d. fee in schools which have more than forty weeks of schooling, while twelve weeks of holiday is much above the average. Moreover, many schools get the children's fees on a much larger number of children than those in average attendance. The meeting further asked for a 10s. grant on all children between three and fourteen, instead of between five and fourteen. But the chief objection was to the provision made for establishing free schools, or
else a given number of free places in existing schools, where the schools in existence are above the 3d. limit, and therefore not free. Subject to these rather important objections, the meeting gave a general support to the Free Education Bill, and it is obvious that, with certain needful improvements, it can be made to satisfy the Churches.
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