"No doubt there are some instances in which the interests of children are prejudiced by their parents claiming them from the guardians, but I should not be prepared to propose legislation which would enable a board of guardians to withhold a child from its parent when claimed by him."[654] [654] _Hansard_, 28th May 1887, vol. 315, p. 857. The policy of the Central Authority was apparently against allowing the guardians to assume parental responsibilities. In 1889 Mr. Ritchie had prepared a Bill "to provide that, on application to the justices, an Order might be made detaining a child already under the care of the guardians or boarded out" (_Local Government Chronicle_, 23rd March 1889, p. 238), but not extending the duties or responsibilities of the guardians. Two years later Parliament over-rode this contention of official irresponsibility, and passed the first of a series of Acts under which guardians might themselves assume parental responsibilities and unsuitable parents might be deprived of the custody of their children; and the guardians of the poor might become _in loco parentis_, even up to eighteen years of age. By the Act of 1889, "where a child is maintained by the guardians of any union and was deserted by its parent," or if the "parent is imprisoned under a sentence of penal servitude or imprisonment in respect of an offence committed against a child," "the guardians may at any time resolve that such child shall be under the control of the guardians until it reaches the age, if a boy, of sixteen, and, if a girl, of eighteen years"; such a resolution of the guardians is not irrevocable; they may rescind it, or, without rescinding it, "permit such child to be either permanently or temporarily under the control of such parent, or of any other relative or of any friend." If the parent is aggrieved by the resolution, he may appeal to a Court of Summary Jurisdiction, and the Court, if satisfied "that the child has not been maintained by the guardians, or was not deserted by such parent, or that it is for the benefit of the child that it should be either permanently or temporarily under the control of such parent, or that the resolution of the guardians should be determined, may make an Order accordingly, and any such Order shall be complied with by the guardians, and if the Order determines the resolution, the resolution shall be thereby determined." The "powers and rights" of a parent which the guardians may assume are subject to one limitation, in that no resolution can authorise them to have the child educated in any religious creed other than that in which the child would otherwise have been educated, _i.e._ that of its parents.[655] [655] Poor Law Act 1889, 52 & 58 Vic. c. 56. sec. 1. The Central Authority duly commended the Act among other legislation of the session to the notice of the boards of guardians in an official circular.[656]