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15. We must also allude to two serious misapprehensions which were mentioned by those pressing for the Revised Code at the Board of Education
(I) The term "proprietary". Your knowledge, Sir, of the Latin language will, we are sure, enable you to understand the sense in which word was, we maintain, rightly used to describe schools which owe their existence and continuance to the initiative and enterprise of such Corporations as the Church Missionary Society, the Roman Catholic Orders, the Bishop of Victoria, etc., and to the devoted service of successive gen- erations of teachers and Council members. They are not Secondary Schools or Grammer Schools or Private Schools. They are Proprietary in the sense they are instruments of service created by private Corporations, though not run for profit in the way in which a Private School is so run.
(II) It was stated that, if our proposal of a block grant were accepted, "money given for one purpose might be used for another". This again reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of a Grant in Aid to a voluntary Corporation running a "proprietary school". A Grant in Aid is given for the general purposes of the school, viz., education, provided the Council of the school complies with the general require- ments of Government. As we have pointed out above, a revision of the Block grant every three years enables Government to ensure that the grant paid is a fair one, in view of the needs of the school at any given period in its history.
16. We therefore have the honour to request that the generous proposals for increasing the already high standard of efficiency of the Grant in Aid schools be embodied in a system of allocation of grant which does not radically change the present relationship between Government and ourselves, viz., the Grant in aid relationship. We suggest that this can be secured by a block grant calculated approximately in the ways suggested by the Heads of the Grant in Aid schools, the final figure being fixed by Government on the basis of fairness and equity rather than on any system of mechanical calculation.
We are, however, in duty bound to point out that, if Government proposes to go forward with the system of calculation suggested by the revisers, we shall be compelled to refer this matter to our Principals in London and elsewhere.
17. We are, however, convinced that the change suggested is unnecessary and that the reasonable modifications suggested by the Heads of Grant in Aid schools will be accepted. We are encouraged in this belief by the voting at the Board, which was in many ways representative of the community. You will notice that the voting was virtually equal. Including the Director, six members were in favour of the revised scheme/