The committee of council, finding it impossible, in the face of threatened resistance from various religious bodies, to institute schools by the unaided power of the secular authorities, yielded so far as to enter into arrangements with the existing societies of promoters of schools, with a view to carry out the object through their instrumentality. The correspondence commenced in 1845 under the administration of Sir Robert Peel, and the arrangements were concluded under the ministry of Lord John Russell in 1846. It was agreed that money should be advanced by government to assist in founding and supporting schools in connection with various religious communions, on the conditions that the schools should be open to the supervision of government inspectors (who were, however, to be restrained from all interference "with the religious instruction, or discipline, or management of the schools"), and that certain "management clauses," drawn up in harmony with the religious views of the respective communions, should be adhered to. On these terms arrangements were concluded with the National Society, representing the promoters of Church of England schools; with the British and Foreign School Society; with the Wesleyan body; and with the Free Church of Scotland. A negotiation with the Poor-school Committee of the Roman Catholic Church is still pending. With the exception of the National Society all the bodies who entered into these arrangements with the Committee of Council have co-operated with it in a frank and fair spirit, and to good purpose. A majority of the National Society, on the other hand, have made vehement efforts to recede from the very arrangements which they themselves had proposed; and have at length concluded a tedious and wrangling attempt to cajole or bully the committee on education to continue their grants, and yet emancipate them from the conditions on which they were made, by passing, on the 11th of December last, a resolution which virtually suspends all co-operation between the society and government. The state of the controversy may be briefly explained.