of the National Debt. Interest thus payable at 44* instead of 3 per cent. would, by reason of the long period through which the annuities of pupil-teachers are deferred, make a great difference in the annual premium, reducing it from 24s. to 16s. 4d. for an annuity of 201., payable at sixty years of age to a person now aged fifteen years. The persons receiving their Lordships' grants would the more willingly concur in the reductions made in such grants for a superannuation fund, in consideration of the contributions which their Lordships would thus make to that fund, and they could not but be received as a distinguished mark of their consideration and their sympathy.

The annexed table, which has been obligingly calculated for me by an actuary of great eminence (Mr. Neison of the Medical Assurance Office) will put the influence of a small difference in the rate of interest, in reducing the annual payments for a deferred annuity, in a striking point of view.

teachers who shall

tion, may be secured

To such apprenticed pupil-teachers as may not be- The annuities of come certificated teachers, and to such certificated give up that occupateachers as may cease to be teachers, the advantage afterwards by continu should not be continued of the addition of one per cent. to the superannuation fund.

Such persons may, however, secure to themselves the annuities to the purchase of which they will have begun to contribute, by annual payments, which, after they have left the office of the teacher, must be calculated at the rate of 3 per cent. interest, instead of 4 per cent.

ing their annual payments on a different scale, to be calculated for that purpose.

nected with the pay

From inquiries which I have instituted at the office of the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt, I have reason to believe that the official business connected with the granting, and the payment of these Official business con annuities, might be transacted at that office. If this ment of annuities to were done, no other addition would be made to the be transacted at the business of the Council Office than is implied in the deduction from each grant of the annual payment for the annuity of the person to whom such grant is made. I have the honor to be, &c., HENRY MOSELEY.

* I am informed that interest is actually paid by the Commissioners of the National Debt, at this rate of 4 per cent. on the funds of Friendly Societies enrolled before the 28th July 1828. An augmented interest is in like manner guaranteed on sums invested as savings by soldiers; and by the East India Company to its widows and orphans; and I have thought that their Lordships might consider the schoolmaster entitled to be put on the footing of the most favoured.

National Debt Office.

APPENDIX A.

3 per Cent.

34 per Cent.

4

Age at

Age at which the Contribution is to cease and the Annuity to begin.

APPENDIX B.

Abstract of a Plan for creating a Teachers' Superannuation Fund.

IN old age the schoolmaster is continued in his office when he has ceased to be equal to the discharge of its duties, because there is no other means of providing for his support.

The retiring pensions provided for by the Minutes of Council for 1846, do not meet this difficulty in the case in which it is most urgent. They provide only for retiring pensions for good schoolmasters. It is the retirement of bad schoolmasters which is most to be desired, and which cannot be provided for except by themselves.

Considerable embarrassment will probably result to the Government, unless some provision be made for the maintenance, in their old age, of the schoolmasters who hold the certificates of the Committee of Council, and who have, for a long series of years, received Government pensions. The present time, when Government is adding largely to the incomes of the teachers, is a favourable one for impressing upon them a sense of the duty, and encouraging them to the practice of economy and forethought. This is, moreover, an important lesson to impress upon the minds of the new race of teachers forming under the auspices of the Committee of Council. For these reasons it is proposed :1st. That a sum, not exceeding 16s. 6d., be deducted from the annual stipend of each pupil-teacher.

2nd. That upon the fund thus collected there be allowed 4 per cent. interest, being 1 per cent. in addition to 3 per cent. allowed by the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt.

3rd. That in consideration of such annual payments, each pupil-teacher shall become entitled to an annual pension of 20l. when he shall attain the age of sixty, if these annual payments shall continue to be made until that time; they being sufficient, when so augmented by interest, for the purchase of such pensions.

4th. That from the annual grant of every schoolmaster or schoolmistress, consequent upon the holding of a certificate, there shall be deducted such a sum annually, and contributed to this common fund, as shall provide for the said schoolmaster or schoolmistress, at an age not later than sixty, an annual pension of not less than 207., if it shall continue to be paid until then.

5th. That this fund shall be deposited with the Commissioners of the National Debt, and the annuities paid at their office.

6th. That the creation of this superannuation fund shall not interfere with the provisions of the Minutes of 1846, for the benefit of teachers, in any other respects than have been herein specified.

7th. That no sums of money paid to this fund shall be returnable to the contributors, except for the objects for which they were severally contributed, and in fulfilment of the obligations thereby contracted.

8th. That any funds which shall, in the course of years, be accumulated over and above those necessary to secure the payment of just claims upon the superannuation fund, shall be applied to the erection of almshouses, to be conveyed in trust for the residence of the widows of schoolmasters, and the maintenance of schools for their orphan children, or else in diminution of the annual payments of the insured, or in augmentation of their annuities.

9th. That it shall be allowed to every contributor, by an addition to his annual payment, (to such an amount as may be calculated to be sufficient,) to provide that the whole sum he has contributed be returned to his representatives in case of his death before he shall have entered on his annuity.

10th. That if any contributor to this fund shall cease to follow the occupation of a teacher, it shall be permitted him to secure to himself, nevertheless, the annuity towards the purchase of which he has contributed, by continuing his contributions on a scale calculated at 3 per cent. interest, instead of the 44 per cent.

15 March 1849.

HENRY MOSELEY.

Report (to the President of the Board of Trade), by Her
Majesty's Inspector of Schools, the Rev. H. MOSELEY,
M.A., F.R.S., on a proposed establishment of Schools
for Seamen's Apprentices, in Seaport Towns.

Qualifications of teachers.

SIR,

5 July 1849.

In compliance with your request that I should draw up for your consideration a plan for establishing schools in sea-port towns, in which a superior class of seamen's apprentices may receive the scientific instruction necessary to qualify them when they shall become the masters of ships, to navigate them with safety; I beg to report that teachers qualified to conduct such schools should be well instructed in the various branches of an ordinary English education, and versed in elementary mathematics, and practical astronomy; that they should be skilful observers with the sextant, and accustomed to compute from their own observations. I have reason to believe that teachers possessing these qualifications, and adapted to the office by naval instructors on their personal character, and by their experience in teaching, may be found among the class of Her Majesty's naval instructors on half-pay. Besides the master there should be appointed in each school two apprenticed pupil-teachers as assistants. These may be appointed, in the first instances, from the Greenwich schools, the indentures of one of the existing pupilteachers of that school being transferred to each master of the new schools, and a junior pupil-teacher appointed from among the best qualified boys of the Greenwich schools.

Such teachers may be found among the

class of Her Majesty's

half-pay.

Two apprenticed pupil-teachers should

master.

be appointed in each school, to assist the Pupil-teachers to be appointed in the first

instance, from the Greenwich schools.

The number of boys in each school should be limited to 60.

After such first appointments, vacancies in the office to be filled up from the schools themselves.

The number of boys in each school should be limited, in the first instance, to sixty; that number being probably the greatest to whom it would be found prac ticable to afford the individual instruction which is especially required by the nature of the subjects to be The schools should be taught. The schools should, however, be built to built to contain 100 contain one hundred boys.

boys.

Each school-house should contain a gallery for simultaneous instruction, and a separate room for in

struments. Where the school-house is situated in a crowded neighbourhood, facilities for observing with the sextant should be provided for, in its construction.

to include a master'

pupil-teachers.

The school-buildings should include a residence for The school-building the master large enough to accommodate, with his house, with accomfamily, the two pupil-teachers, who should be required modation for two to reside with him. An evening school should be An evening school to opened on four evenings in the week for the instruc-struction of seamen's tion of such seamen's apprentices (whose ships are in apprentices, whose port, or who are waiting for ships,) as may be desirous to avail themselves of it.

be kept for the in

ships are in port.

provided for the use

Besides such apparatus as is commonly used in other Instruments to be schools, the following should be provided for the use of the schools. of each of these schools, of the best kind :-six sextants, a chronometer, a set of nautical charts, an astronomical clock, an astronomical telescope, a barometer, a thermometer, a hygrometer, an artificial horizon, a compass, apparatus illustrative of the principles of astronomy, and apparatus to illustrate the nature of magnetic attraction. The schools should be under the general manage- under the general ment and control of the Board of Trade, by whom the management and masters should be appointed, and the general course of of Trade. instruction to be pursued in each school prescribed.

The schools to be

control of the Board

struction of the chil

The Incumbent of the parish or other ecclesiastical But the religious indistrict in which the school is situated, should be dren to be placed under the supervision requested to undertake the direction of the religious of the incumbent of instruction in the school.

the parish or other ecclesiastical district

situated.

schools.

No boy to be taught the church catechism

No boy should, however, be required to learn the in which the school is Church Catechism, or be taught the distinctive doc- The scriptures to be trines of the Church, whose parents, from conscientious taught daily in the motives, objected to his receiving such instruction. The Rector or other Incumbent of the parish in whose parents may which the school is situated, together with the Mayor object to his learning and Corporation of the town, the Comptroller of the The rector of the Customs of the Port, and such other persons as in each parish, together with be judged expedient, should constitute a Board poration, are to conof Visitors to the schools, to see that the regulations of Visitors. the Board of Trade are duly carried out in respect to it, and to exercise a general supervision over the conduct of the master.

case may

These gentlemen might be requested to meet at the school-house twice a year, and to report to the Board of Trade on the progress of the school.

the mayor and cor

stitute a Board of

spected by the ComEducation.

The schools should be under the inspection of the The schools to be inCommittee of Council on Education, one of whose mittee of Council on Inspectors should visit them annually, and examine the boys; his report thereon to the Committee of Council being communicated to the Board of Trade.