of every non-county borough with a population of over 10,000, and of every urban district with a population of over 20,000, is constituted the local education authority for purposes of elementary education (ƒ). The object of the Act of 1870 was to provide schools at the public expense in districts where the accommodation provided by the existing voluntary schools was insufficient. The general execution of the scheme of the Act of 1870 was entrusted to the Education Department, which might order a new body to be elected for that purpose in each school district. These bodies were called school boards. Their powers and duties, as well as those of school attendance committees (g), have now, by the Act of 1902, been transferred to the local education authority (h). The Act of 1902 does not apply to London. Accordingly, the school board for London continues in the exercise of its powers and duties, and the Metropolis still continues to be governed in matters of elementary education, as before, by the Elementary Education Acts, 1870 to 1900. School boards and school attendance committees being elsewhere abolished, the new local education authority is made responsible for all secular instruction in all public elementary schools, whether provided (board) or not provided (voluntary), and is required to maintain and keep efficient all public elementary schools within its area which are necessary, to control all expenditure needed for that purpose, and to provide a sufficient amount of school accommodation without payment of fees (i).

Each school must be conducted in accordance with the regulations provided by the Acts, of which the principal are the following:-(1) That it shall not be required, as a condition of any child being admitted to or continuing

(f) Sect. 1.

(g) Created in 1876 by 39 & 40 Vict. c. 79, to enforce compulsory attendance of children in

districts where no school boards existed.

(h) Sect. 5.

(i) Sects. 5, 7, 16.

in a school, that he shall attend (or abstain from attending) any Sunday school or place of public worship, or that he shall attend any religious observance or instruction from which he may be withdrawn by his parents; (2) That the period during which any religious observance is practised, or instruction in religious subjects given, in the school, shall be at prescribed times either at the beginning or at the end of the school hours; (3) That the school shall at all times be open to the inspection of his Majesty's inspectors of schools, who shall not, however, in the exercise of their duties, inquire into the instruction given to the scholars in religious subjects (k); and (4) That, in the case of schools provided by the local education authority, no religious catechism or formulary, which is distinctive of any particular denomination, shall be taught in the school (). In the case of schools which are not provided by, but are maintained by, the local education. authority (ie., voluntary schools), the religious instruction given must be in accordance with the provisions (if any) of the trust deed relating thereto, and is under the control of the managers, unless there is in the trust deed a provision for reference to the bishop or superior ecclesiastical or other denominational authority. In the latter case, so far as such provision gives to the bishop or authority the power of deciding whether the character of the religious instruction is or is not in accordance with the provisions of the trust deed, the provisions of the deed must be observed (m). If the local education authority fails to fulfil any of its duties under the Elementary Education Acts, 1870 to 1900, or the Education Act, 1902, or fails to provide such additional public school accommodation, within the meaning of the Elementary Education Act, 1870, as is in the opinion of the Board of Education

(k) Act of 1870, s. 7.

(1) Ibid. s. 14; Att.-Gen. V. English, and National Society v.

S. C.-III.

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London School Board (1874), L. R. 18 Eq. 608.

(m) Act of 1902, s. 7 (6).

necessary in any part of its area, the Board of Education may, after holding a public inquiry, make such order as it thinks necessary or proper for the purpose of compelling the authority to fulfil its duty; and any such order may be enforced by mandamus (n).

Until the year 1870, parents were under no general statutory obligation to cause their children to be educated. But the Elementary Education Act, 1870, enabled school boards to make, with the approval of the Education Department, by-laws for all or any of the following purposes (1) Requiring the parents of children between the ages of five and thirteen to cause such children (unless there is some reasonable excuse) to attend school; (2) Determining the time during which the children are so to attend school; and (3) Imposing penalties for breach of the by-laws.

The exercise of this power was, it will be seen, optional. By the Elementary Education Act, 1876, however, it was expressly declared to be the duty of the parent of every child between the ages of five and fifteen to cause it "to re"ceive efficient elementary instruction in reading, writing, "and arithmetic" (o). If this duty in regard to a child above the age of five years is habitually and without "reasonable excuse" neglected, it is the duty of the local education authority, after due warning to the parent, to complain to a court of summary jurisdiction (p) ; by which an "attendance order" may be made, the noncompliance with which may be visited with a pecuniary penalty. And all persons are prohibited, under a penalty, from taking into their employment (subject to certain exceptions) any child, who is under the age of eleven, or who, being above that age but under the age of fourteen, is not certificated, or allowed by law to be fully or partially so employed (q). In the last resort, the child may be

(n) Act of 1902, s. 16. (0) Act of 1876, s. 4.

(p) Ibid. s. 11.

(q) Ibid. ss. 5, 6, 9; Act of 1893.

sent to a certified industrial school, to the expenses of which the parent will be liable to contribute.

By the Elementary Education Act, 1880, the exercise of the power to make by-laws respecting the attendance of children at school was made compulsory (r); and it therefore is now the duty of the local education authority to make such by-laws, if none exist in its district. No such by-law may be contrary to anything contained in any Act for regulating the education of children employed in labour; and every by-law must provide for the total or partial exemption of any child between the ages of ten and thirteen, if one of his Majesty's inspectors certifies that such child has reached a standard of education specified in such by-law (s). Reasonable excuses for the non-attendance of a child are :—(1) that it is under efficient instruction in some other manner; (2) that it has been prevented from attending by sickness or other unavoidable cause; (3) that there is no public elementary school open which the child can attend within the distance fixed by the by-laws from the child's residence, which distance must not exceed three miles by the nearest road (t).

The age up to which the attendance of children at school may be required by these by-laws is raised by the Elementary Education Act, 1900, from thirteen years to fourteen years (u).

Elementary education is provided free for children in all schools which receive the "fee grant," which is a grant, paid out of moneys provided by parliament, of ten shillings a year" for each child of the number of children over three and under fifteen years of age, in average "attendance at any public elementary school in England "or Wales (not being an evening school), the managers of

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(7) 43 & 44 Vict. c. 23, s. 2. (8) Act of 1870, s. 74.

(t) Ibid.

(u) 63 & 64 Vict. c. 53, s. 6.

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"which are willing to receive the same, and in which the "Board of Education are satisfied that the regulations as "to fees are in accordance with the conditions" in the Elementary Education Act, 1891 (y). Under exceptional circumstances a fee not exceeding sixpence per week per child may be charged (2). The ordinary expenses of a council as local education authority are paid, if not otherwise provided for, in the case of a county out of the county fund, and in the case of a borough, out of the borough fund or rate, or, if no borough rate is levied, out of a separate rate to be made, assessed, and levied in like manner as a borough rate (a); and, in the case of the council of an urban district not a borough, out of a fund raised out of the poor rate of the parishes comprised in the district (b). But grants made by parliament under various statutes form a substantial part of the income of a local education authority.

II. Higher and Technical Education. Although, as has been shown, provision was made by the Elementary Education Act, 1870, for elementary education, education, except the elementary education of children up to the age of fourteen, was left, until 1889, almost entirely to voluntary effort. The school boards had no authority to provide education, except for children up to the age of fourteen, and this only such education as could be described as "elementary." An attempt made by the London School Board to give instruction in science and art was held by the Court of Appeal, affirming a judgment of the High Court of Justice, to be beyond its statutory powers (c); and the establishment by that Board of schools for the education of pupil teachers was also held to be ultra vires (d). But, by the Education Act, 1902,

(y) 54 & 55 Vict. c. 56, s. 1. (z) Ibid. s. 4.

(a) Act of 1902, s. 18.

(b) Ibid.; Act of 1876, s. 33.

(c) R. V. Cockerton, 1 K. B. 726.

(d) Dyer v. London Board, [1902] 2 Ch. 768,

[1901]

School