288 ~~ BOARD OF EDUCATION 
however, discovered, not so much in the diversion 
of non-educational endowments to educational pur- 
poses, as in the alleged misappropriation of endow- 
ments intended for the benefit of the poor, whether 
in the form of education or otherwise, for the 
educational benefit of the rich. The working of 
the Endowed Schools Acts was investigated by 
Select Committees of the House of Commons in 
1886 and 1887, and they directed their special 
attention “to the question of the interests of the 
poor in educational endowments and whether the 
tendency of the Acts as hitherto administered had 
in any degree been to withdraw from the poorer 
classes. the benefit of funds upon which those classes 
had an equitable and customary claim.” They 
concluded that “the tendency of schemes for 
grammar schools is favourable to the poor” and 
that “the alleged injustice seems to arise partly 
from the gaps and imperfections of our educational 
system, but still more from the imperfect acquaint- 
ance with it possessed by the working classes.”* 
No one who has any experience of the administration 
of old endowments can fail to realise the great 
difficulty of securing their effective and useful 
application in modern circumstances without afford- 
ing any ground of complaint to particular areas or 
classes, and it is not to be supposed that, in matters 
where the relevant considerations are so intricate 
and conflicting, no mistakes have been made and 
no injustice done. But on the whole there can be 
little doubt that statutory powers over educational 
endowments have been exercised, whether by the 
* Report No. 120 of 1887