XV THE SCHOOL BOARDS 377 



clare the School Board to be, and such Board shall accord- 

 ingly be deemed to be, a Board in default, and the Educa- 

 tion Department may proceed accordingly ; and every act, 

 or omission, of any member of the School Board, or man- 

 ager appointed by them, or any person under the control of 

 the Board, shall be deemed to be permitted by the Board, 

 unless the contrary be proved. 



" If any dispute arises as to whether the School Board 

 have done, or permitted, any act in contravention of, or 

 have failed to comply with, the said regulations, the matter 

 shall be referred to the Education Department, whose deci- 

 sion thereon shall he Jinal.^' 



It will be observed that this clause gives the 

 Minister of Education absolute power over the do- 

 ings of the School Boards. He is not only the 

 administrator of the Act, but he is its interpreter. 

 I had imagined that on the occurrence of a dispute, 

 not as regards a question of pure administration, 

 but as to the meaning of a clause of the Act, a 

 case might be taken and referred to a ' court of 

 justice. But I am led to believe that the 

 Legislature has, in the present instance, deliber- 

 ately taken the power out of the hands of the 

 judges and lodged it in those of the Minister of 

 Education, who, in accordance with our method 

 of making Ministers, will necessarily be a political 

 partisan, and who may be a strong theological 

 sectary into the bargain. And I am informed by 

 members of Parliament who watched the progress 

 of the Act, that the responsibility for this unusual 

 state of thinsfs rests, not with the Government, 

 but with the Legislature, which exhibited a 



