18. Where, during the first five years after the commencement of this Act, or any further period which Her Majesty may from time to time fix by Order in Council, a child, before he has attained the age of eleven years, obtains such certificate of proficiency in reading, writing, and elementary arithmetic, and also such certificate of previous due attendance at a public elementary school, as are in this Act in that behalf mentioned, then, subject to the regulations and conditions contained in an order of the Education Department for the time being in force under the First Schedule to this Act, the school fee payable by such child at any public elementary school in the course of the three years next after he obtains the last of such certificates, not exceeding the ordinary fee charged at such school, may be paid by the Education Department out of moneys provided by Parliament, the school fees so paid to be reckoned as school pence to be met by the grant payable by the Department.

19. So much of section ninety-seven of "The Elementary Education Act, 1870," as enacts that the conditions required to be fulfilled by an elementary school in order to obtain the annual parliamentary grant shall provide that the grant shall not for any year exceed the income of the school for that year which was derived from voluntary contributions and from school fees, and from any sources other than the parliamentary grant, shall be repealed as from the thirty-first day of March one thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven.

After the thirty-first day of March one thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven the conditions required to be fulfilled by an page 37 elementary school in order to obtain the annual parliamentary grant shall provide that—

(1.)	Such grant shall not in any year be reduced by reason of its excess above the income of the school if the grant do not exceed the amount of seventeen shillings and sixpence per child in average attendance at the school during that year, but shall not exceed that amount per child, except by the same sum by which the income of the school, derived from voluntary contributions, rates, school fees, endowments, and any source whatever other than the parliamentary grant exceeds the said amount per child; and—
(2.)	Where the population of the school district in which the school is situate, or the population within two miles, measured according to the nearest road, from the school is less than three hundred, and there is no other public elementary school recognised by the Education Department as available for the children of that district, or that population (as the case may be), a special parliamentary grant may be made annually to that school to the amount, if the said population exceeds two hundred, of ten pounds, and, if it does not exceed two hundred, of fifteen pounds; and—
(3.)	The said special grant shall be in addition to the ordinary annual parliamentary grant, and shall not be included in the calculation of that grant for the purpose of determining whether it does or not exceed the amount before in this section mentioned.

20. The conditions required to be fulfilled by schools in order to obtain annual parliamentary grants shall provide that the income of the schools shall be applied only for the purpose of public elementary schools.