1875. 1876. 1877. 1875. 1876. 1877. 1875. 1876. 1877. 1875. 1876. 1877. District. Of 3d. and above. Boroughs Parishes 55 47.3 We have already referred to the applications which we continue to receive for our sanction to loans for works of a permanent character for supplying the deficiency in the school accommodation in the districts under school boards, and to our having recommended the Public Works Loan Commissioners to advance £9,348,318 upon the security of the rates. Under the terms of section 36 of the Act 38 and 39 Vic., c. 89, it is the duty of the Local Government Board to satisfy themselves that any loan advanced by the Commissioners upon the security of a rate is applied to the work for which it is advanced. Up to Michaelmas, 1877, the Loan Commissioners had paid to We find that the liabilities of school boards in respect of loans outstanding were In England. In Wales. On 29th Sept., 1877. On 29th Sept., | On 29h Sept., On 29th Sept., On 29th Sept., On 29th Sept., 1876. 1875. 1876. 1877. £ The sum expended by school boards in England during the year under review amounted to £3,187,535, as compared with 2,748,356 in the previous year; and in Wales to £200,612, as compared with £172,176. As nearly as we can ascertain from the accounts, expenditure amounting to £1,809,432 was incurred in the purchase of sites for schools, and in building, enlarging, and furnishing schools, leaving £1,578,715 as the current expenditure, in contradistinction to the capital expenditure of the year. The latter sum represents (1) the cost of administration of 1,583 boards; (2) the cost of maintenance of schools provided by 1,307 boards; (3) the preliminary expenses of 353 boards having no schools under their control. Turning now to the returns which we have received from schools inspected for annual grants during the year ended the 31st August, 1877, we extract the following results: * This board has raised loans of £90,000 from the Metropolitan Board of Works, in addition to the sums advanced by the Public Works Loan Commissioners. For the purpose of comparison the corresponding results in Scotland are given in brackets. The cost of "maintenance" per child in average attendance was— £ s. d. 1 13 11 £ 8. d. (217) (1 16 32) The grants paid in the year ending 31st August, 1876, were, for each child in average attendance : S. d. S. d. In board schools In voluntary schools 13 3 (14 11) The children in Scotland have again earned a higher grant per head than the children in England and Wales, and, as the conditions in the Code for England and Wales and in the Code for Scotland, under which the grants are earned, now vary but little, we are able to append a comparative statement showing the average sums earned by the children under the several articles of the two Codes during the past year : The advantage in favour of Scotland is mainly accounted for by the grants earned by examination, and is most apparent in the earnings in the higher subjects of examination (Art. 21). (To be continued in our next.) The National Schoolmaster. SUMMARY. HE report of the sub-committee of the London School Board on "Teachers' Salaries and Promotion" is calling forth comments from various quarters. We are glad to see that they propose to allow a special grant of £10 yearly to every teacher who has gained a degree of B.A. at a university in the United Kingdom. This will encourage the younger teachers to study for university degrees, and will tend to raise the profession in the estimation of the public. The Guardian has a thoughtful article on the subject, pointing out what it considers good features in the scheme : In some points, especially in dealing with head-teachers, the new proposals seem to be an improvement; and, indeed, to be designed with a view to meet that serious evil to which we adverted not long ago-the tendency to discourage in board schools the attendance of those very children, the poorest and most neglected, who are likely to be the most irregular, and for whose especial benefit the legislation of 1870 created the board system. The former arrangement, which gave them a pecuniary interest in weeding their schools of all children not likely to qualify for examination and earn a grant, is now greatly modified for the better. At the same time we observe that the assistant-teachers are to be paid by fixed salaries, without obtaining any share in the Government grant. Both these alterations are we think, decidedly good. The Guardian goes on to remark what an inspector of £800 a-year was very fond of saying to school teachers of £80 or £90-that none but the highest motives should be regarded in accepting the office of a school teacher. The Guardian, however, has more to say than this, and what it says deserves the consideration of our readers. It regards the proposed scale of salaries as excessive, and calculated to damage denominational schools: The great point of public interest is the effect which the new scheme will have on the educational market, and so on the general expenditure and general welfare of elementary schools. Does it involve advance or retrogression in that career of extreme liberality out of public funds, by which hitherto the school boards have raised the salaries and encouraged the aspirations of teachers? Now we are very far from grudging adequate remuneration to teachers, or from undervaluing the importance and onerousness of the duties they have to do. But, allowing to the full for all these considerations, and comparing the case of elementary school teachers with the case of No. 95.-October, 1878. those engaged in other employments, in respect of the sacrifices which they have had to make for their education, of the qualifications required, and the amount of work and relaxation on which they have to reckon, we cannot but think that these salaries must be regarded as far in excess both of the necessities and merits of the case. It is unjust to schools which cannot draw on such funds to force them to a corresponding expenditure on pain of being placed in a position of invidiousness and disadvantage. It is only a narrow viow of the responsibilities of school boards which refuses to take cognisance of this last consideration; and public opinion ought to force such members of the boards as need compulsion to rise to larger ideas of their educational duty and responsibility. We do not know what the Guardian would say if Mr. Waddy proposed in the House of Commons that the stipends of the Bishops should be reduced from £5,000 to £2,000 because the Wesleyan body could not afford to pay its head ministers at a higher rate; but its contention that school boards should not be allowed to pay their teachers more than the voluntary schools can afford, comes to about the same thing. The fact is, in spite of the Guardian, the profession of school teacher is being raised, for it is felt that by elevating the position of the teacher we are improving the school. The highest stipend under the proposed scheme is £520. This would be considered a moderate stipend for a third-rate medical man; and surely the government of a large London school ought at least to be as well remunerated. On Monday, the 16th September, a meeting of the teachers of the London board was held to consider this scheme. "With regard to the general operation of the new scheme, it was agreed that while the proposed new scale of salaries would, if adopted in its entirety, at first effect an increase in the incomes of many teachers, it would cause a reduction in the incomes of many others, and would prevent the teachers at present employed from enjoying the prospective advantages of the scale now in force." It was agreed to ask the board to give a larger stipend to certificated assistant-teachers. The meeting was attended by about 800 teachers. The Pall Mall Gazette has a very good description, in a letter from its Paris correspondent, of the kind of moral suasion in force in French schools. We feel sure that English parents and teachers, after reading the account, would very soon make up their minds which kind of punishment the French or the English-they themselves prefer. This is what the Paris correspondent says:— The hearts of tender parents and guardians are periodically troubled by an agitation against corporal punishment in schools. As often happens with agitators, the advocates of what is very vaguely described as "moral suasion" indulge in a good deal of sham sentiment, and begin by ignoring the fact that all punishments inflicted on children must of necessity involve some amount of physical destress, and are "corporal," whether called so or not. Fire a boy's brain with long extra tasks, make him fidgety and irritable, if not ill, by keeping him indoors when his companions are at play; deprive him of food, or shake his nerves with stern sermons, and the child will suffer in body. So the question really is as to whether these methods of correction are on the whole more efficacious than the other sorts of chastisements termed corporal, and indiscrimately banned as such. It is often remarked that order is well maintained in French public schools without flogging; but this is incorrect. French lycées are very disorderly places; and it is not found that the punishment inflicted in them conduce to what Englishmen would call good discipline or promote a healthy moral tone among the boys. A lycéen is punished by being deprived of his Sunday outings, by being interdicted from speaking during dinner, and by being put on short commons at it; or again, by being locked up for any period not exceeding seven days in a chamber of durance, nicknamed "l'ours," where he must write out so many hundreds or thousands of lines. Some of these penalties would be inapplicable in English public schools. An Eton boy would care little about being deprived of pudding, for he could stroll off to the nearest confectioner's and there complete his repast. He could not be denied Sunday outings, for English schoolboys are not in the habit of going home to spend the Sunday with their friends, as is the custom in France; while the introduction of "l'ours," necessitating as it would the building of a number of regular prison cells, would probably not be a popular arrangement at Eton, either with the boys or their parents. Again, what would an Eton boy think of being made to kneel in the middle of his classroom on a log of wood during an hour, or being sentenced to walk about for a couple of days with a dunce's cap on his head? These are favourite punishments in French schools; and surely the moral suasionist who thinks that a flogging is degrading to the recipient will hardly contend that the wearing of a fool's cap is calculated to raise a boy's self-respect. The argument as to the debasing influence of flogging may indeed be dismissed summarily by saying that the self-respect, spirit, courage, love of truth, and sense of honour generally, are infinitely higher among English than among French schoolboys. We cannot say that the questions in religious knowledge set to the candidates in the July examination at all err on the side of difficulty. The majority of them can be answered by a careful attention to the Sunday lessons in the services of the Church. One of the questions is so carelessly put as to suggest error, as where it is asked, who were the speakers at the Council of "Jerusalem." The record in the Acts says “when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up," from which it is clear that the council was addressed by many others besides Peter and James, and Paul and Barnabas. The second section seems more fitted in difficulty for school children of nine or ten, than pupil teachers of 18 and upwards. Possibly, the abysmal ignorance found in the answers to these papers warrants the exceedingly elementary character of the questions : 1. What wonders were wrought ? SECTION II. (a) At the passage of Jordan by Israel under Joshua. (b) At the taking of Jericho ; (c) At Ai; (d) At the relief of Gibeon. 2. Explain the following passages, and state the occasions on which they occur :(a) "He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brough forth butter in a lordly dish;" (b) "If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle ;", (c) "Buy it for thee. So he drew off his shoe." 3. Give a short account of Abner, Ahitophel, Rehoboam, Hezekiah, Esther. We cut the following from a review in the Guardian of a life of James Hinton, the eminent aurist. We think our readers will find it worthy of attentive perusal. The word "altruistic," which it seems we |