The destitution of his family in case of his death. Schools often con ducted by teachers and infirmities, are The destitution of his family, in case of his death, aggravated by the fact, that the schoolmaster rarel I believe, brings up his children to any mechanical & laborious calling, being accustomed to look forward t his own walk in life as a future occupation for ther or perhaps to some higher one. I have frequently found schools in charge of teacher who, from their years who, from their years and infirmities, were unequal t unequal to that charge the task, and whom the managers would have been gla to the great detriment to have removed had there been other provision fe any their maintenance, and have reason to believe that the interests of education in other districts than my our suffer greatly from this cause. of education. The Minutes of the 25th August 1846, do this evil. Their Lordships' Minutes of the 25th August 184 not provide against provide, it is true, for retiring pensions to be granted to teachers "who shall be rendered incapable, by age or infirmity, of continuing to teach their schools efficiently." They annex, however, as a condition, “That in all cases of application for pensions, a report shall be required from the Inspector, and from the trustees and managers of the schools, as to the character and conduct of the applicants, and the manner in which the educa tion of the pupils under their charge has been carried on. The amount of the pension to be determined ac cording to such report, and in no case to exceed twothirds of the average amount of salary and emolument annually received by the applicant during the period that the school shall have been under inspection.' Their Lordships obviously contemplate, by this Minute, that the retiring pensions allowed to teachers should be dependant upon their merits. Without this condition, their grants would not indeed operate for the encouragement of zealous and efficient teachers: it involves, nevertheless, this result, that an inefficiert teacher cannot become entitled to such a retiring pen sion as shall be sufficient for the maintenance of his family, and justify the promoters of the school in calling upon him to resign his situation. The great adva tage of providing for schoolmasters' retiring allowances is not, therefore, secured by the Minutes in those case where it is most important to secure it. It is the inefficient and not the efficient schoolmasters who retirement is to be desired. In cases, moreover, where the schoolmaster's previon services may have entitled him even to the highest retiring pension provided for by the Minutes, the r duction of one-third of his income may sometimes ope rate to prevent him from retiring at that age when would be for his own comfort, and perhaps for the advantage of the school, that he should do so. good schoolmaster add to the retiring from their Lordships, The allowance which he would have purchased for It is desirable that the himself by his contributions to a superannuation fund, should be enabled to added to their Lordships' retiring pension, would place pension which he him, under such circumstances, in a position of inde- shall have merited pendence. Having been a successful and a provident some further proviteacher, his old age might, indeed, thus become one of sion for himself. comparative affluence; as it would have been if he had been a successful and a provident shopkeeper. most favorable for In addition to the motives which render it expedient The present time the to other classes of persons to provide, by the method of creating a superannuamutual assurance, for the contingencies of old age, of tion fund for teachers. sickness, and of death; those which I have assigned, apply specially to the class of elementary teachers, and I have thought it the more desirable to bring them under your Lordships' notice now, as the teachers who, by the operation of the recent Minutes, have received considerable augmentations of income, would probably be prevailed upon to set apart a portion of such augmentations more readily now, than when this additional sum shall have passed into their current expenditure. It seems but reasonable that the State should protect itself against that destitution of their old age in making its grants to teachers with which it is liable to be burdened, and in this point of view, to be worthy of consideration, whether all such teachers as receive All teachers receiving Government grants, as well pupil-teachers as masters contribute a portion and mistresses, should not be required to pay a portion towards a common of such grants into a common fund, for the securing an adequate provision against destitution in old age. public grants should superannuation fund. contributors to such a The teachers to whom public grants are at present The number of the paid, whose number amounts, I believe, to not less than fund would place it 4,500, would, in themselves, be enough to constitute an upon a secure basis. association upon a secure basis; and from the early age at which the payments of the greater portion of the contributors would commence, the calculations to be made in respect to them, would be the most certain of which the nature of the subject admits. ment. A great majority of the persons who at present receive A majority of teachpublic grants, would, probably, be found to concur in ers receiving public grants would probably the arrangement, and the more readily, as the payments concur in the arrange. being annually deducted from the grants, would be made without trouble, and the money, not having been received by them, would not be so much missed. There seems no reason why the State, claiming of The State, claiming of its other civil servants annual contributions to a su- contributions to a perannuation fund, should make an exception in respect may claim it of these. its other civil servants superannuation fund, The State would thus give its authority to a principle which, if would contribute greatly to diminish the public burdens, of the public morals. to the class of teachers. Their destitution in old age will not be less complete, or their claims for relief, when infirmities come upon them, less urgent; claims which their certificates will be held to authenticate. Nor is it an unimportant consideration, in this view of the subject, that by requiring every teacher who regenerally acted upon, ceives a public grant, to make a provision for old age, the State would declare in a more public manner, perand raise the standard haps, than could by any other means be done, its sense of the binding nature of the obligation which lies upon every man to make such a provision, would awaken a sense of this obligation in the minds of the pupil teachers at an age when it is most likely to be lasting, and would give its authority to a principle which, if generally acted upon by persons having others in their employment, would contribute to diminish the public burdens, and to raise the standard of the public morals. The existing super civil servants of the State. Referring to the various plans on which superannuaannuation fund of the tion funds, and funds for the support of widows and orphans have, in other cases, been created, I find, in respect to the civil service of the State, that (by Treasury Minute from 1829, and by Act of Parliament since 1834) 2 per cent. has been deducted from all salaries not exceeding 1007., and 5 per cent. from all above that sum, and contributed to a superannuation fund. The scale of allowances made by the State as a superannuation in the civil service was formerly ths of the salary after ten years' service, rising thence by th every five years; but by the Superannuation Act this has been reduced, beginning now, from ths after ten years' service, and rising byth every seven years, until it becomes ths. Superannuation servants of the East India Company. The East India Company allows to its civil officers allowance of the civil at home (without requiring any contribution on their part), one-third of their salaries after ten years' service, one-half after twenty years, and two-thirds after any greater number of years. Funds for widows and orphans of the civil servants of the East India Company. Fund created by the To provide for their widows and orphans it creates a fund by deducting 2 per cent. annually from their salaries, by an annual grant of 4,6007., and by a guaranteed rate of interest. The Trinity House, proceeding on the same principle, Trinity House for the takes 24 per cent. indiscriminately from the salaries of bachelors, widowers, and married men, to provide annuities for widows and orphans. widows and orphans of its servants. widows and orphans Proposed fund for the I am informed that the Government has been moved of the servants of the by a large body of its civil servants, to create a fund on this principle, for the maintenance of their orphans State. and widows, out of the sums by which their salaries have been reduced. of the widows and There are two associations among the schoolmasters Funds for the support in Scotland established for the support of widows and orphans of the schoolorphans. One, of the Burgh and Parochial School- masters of Scotland. masters, established forty years ago, and the other called the Edinburgh Society of Teachers, established as far back as the year 1737. The funds of both are in a prosperous state, and to one or the other the great body of the teachers in Scotland, I believe, belong. To the last-mentioned society there are three classes of contributors, who pay respectively 41. 4s., 31. 3s., and 21. 2s. annually; but bachelors and widowers two-thirds of these sums. Every contributor who is married at the time of his admission, or at any time afterwards when he becomes a married man, is required to make the single payment, under the name of a marriage tax, of a sum of money dependent upon his own age and its excess over that of his wife, which sum may be assumed to vary according to these circumstances from 27. to 157. In consideration of such payments, the widows of contributors of the first class, receive annual pensions of 24/., those of the second, 187., and those of the third, 12. Or if, their wives not surviving them, they leave children, these pensions are paid to the children, until the youngest has attained the age of sixteen. It would not be ex the maintenance of masters. An opportunityshould ed to the contributors payment of their con families in case of Their Lordships will not probably deem it expe- pedient at present to dient at present to make deductions from their grants guarantee a fund for to teachers as a means of providing for their widows the widows and and orphans. The contingencies which such a provision orphans of schoolinvolves, not being yet known with sufficient accuracy to justify the public guarantee which this would imply. nevertheles be affordIt would. however, probably be expedient, whilst a pro-to the superannuation vision for old age is alone rendered necessary, to give fund, to secure the reto contributors the option, by increased premiums (of tributions to their which a table should be calculated) to provide, that in their death before the event of their deaths before the periods when they they shall have entershall have entered upon their annuities, the whole sums they may, up to that time, have contributed, shall be returned to their representatives. The reasons which It is inexpedient that render it inexpedient that their Lordships should un- should guarantee the dertake any responsibility in regard to the application fund for the benefit of of a fund for widows and orphans, appear to place, also, teachers. the application of a sick fund beyond the legitimate sphere of their control. ed on their annuities. their Lordships application of a sick tion fund for certifi The plan I have to submit to your Lordship rests Plan of a superannuaon the principle that it is incumbent on the Government, cated teachers and in augmenting the stipends of the teachers, to whom it pupil-teachers. The contributors to be allowed, by an addition to the re quired contribution, contributions shall be grants its certificates, to provide that the elementary education of the country shall not be burdened with their maintenance, or the State embarrassed with their destitution, when, by reason of old age, they are no longer equal to the discharge of their duties. With this view I propose : That from all annual grants to certificated masters and pupil-teachers to be appointed after the year 1849, there shall be deducted the sum necessary to secure to each, a retiring pension of not less than 207., when he shall attain an age not exceeding sixty years. That the sums so contributed by each shall be understood to be forfeited to the fund if he shall die before that period, or if, ceasing to receive a public grant, he shall cease to contribute to it. That to the table of annual premiums calculated as sufficient for this object by such actuaries as your Lordship may approve, shall be added another, in which whole amount of their shall be specified the sums to be added to the abovementioned premiums, to provide that at the deaths of families at their death. the assured, there shall be returned to their representatives, the whole of the sums they shall severally have contributed; it being left to their option to make these additions to their annual premiums or not. returned to their A payment of about 158. annually sufficient to secure to a pupil teacher an annuity of 201, at the age of 65. Having calculated, according to the Carlisle tables of mortality, the annual premium for which a pupilteacher, supposed to be of the age of from thirteen to sixteen years, may purchase an annuity of 20., to commence at the age of sixty-five, I find it to be about 15s. at the rate of interest (3 per cent.) allowed by the Commissioners of the National Debt. For an annuity to commence at sixty instead of sixty-five, the annual payment would be 24s. instead of 15s. Objections would, perhaps, be made to a deduction of the former sum from the annual stipend of a pupil-teacher, but not to the latter; nevertheless, sixty, and not sixty-five years mence at the age of is the period at which the schoolmaster's retiring pension should begin to be payable. The schoolmaster's annuity should com. 60 instead of 65. An addition of one per cent. recommend to the interest (34 per cent.,) paid by the Commissioners of the National Debt. Under these circumstances I have thought that their ed to be made for the Lordships, looking at the great benefit which could not purposes of this fund but result to the public from a provision for the retirement of superannuated schoolmasters, and the great advantage to pupil-teachers of beginning to contribute to a superannuation fund from the commencement of their apprenticeship; would take into their consideration whether an addition of one per cent. might not, with advantage to the public service, be made to the interest payable on such funds by the Commissioners |