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 201. 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 Qualifications o 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. be I have reason to believe that teachers possessclass of Her Majesty's ing these qualifications, and adapted to the office by 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 be appointed in each apprenticed pupil-teachers as assistants. These may be appointed, in the first instances, from the Greenwich schools, the indentures of one of the existing pupilappointed in the first teachers 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 found among the naval instructors on half-pay. Two apprenticed pupil-teachers should school, to assist the master. Pupil-teachers to be 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 practicable 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 contain one hundred boys. built to contain 100 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' modation for two 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 pupil-teachers. to reside with him. An evening school should be An evening school te 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 requested to undertake the direction of the religious of the incumbent of instruction in the school. No boy should, however, be required to learn the Church Catechism, or be taught the distinctive doctrines of the Church, whose parents, from conscientious motives, objected to his receiving such instruction. under the supervision the parish or other ecclesiastical district situated. in which the school is The scriptures to be taught daily in the schools. No boy to be taught the church catechism whose parents may it. the mayor and cor The Rector or other Incumbent of the parish in 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 case may 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. 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. stitute a Board of spected by the Com 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 Education. the boys; his report thereon to the Committee of Council being communicated to the Board of Trade. Age of admission. Time to be occupied by the course of instruction. Qualifications for admission. No boy should be admitted to the school being younger than eleven, or older than fourteen years. The course of instruction should be so ordered as not to occupy a period of less than two or more than three years. Each boy on his admission to the schools should be able to read fluently in any book of general information, to write a passage from dictation correctly as to the spelling, and in a good hand to work questions in arithmetic as far as the Rule of Three. After the first year from the establishment of the schools, this limit should, however, be extended to Subjects of instruction decimals. The following subjects should be taught in the schools: in the schools. Text-books required for instruction in nautical science. Text-books on nautical science to be written specially for The boys should buy their own books. Plane. Nautical Astronomy. The existing text-books in navigation and nautical astronomy are not sufficiently elementary for the use of the schools; the scientific information they contain is not conveyed under the simplest forms, as sanctioned by the present mathematical teaching of the Universities and other places of instruction, and they are more laborious to study, and larger and more costly than is required. Competent persons should therefore be commissioned to write-1st. A text-book on the theory of nautical science;* and 2ndly. A book of examples in nautical science for the use of the schools. In all other subjects of instruction, text-books are to the use of the schools. be found well adapted to the use of the schools. Every boy should be required to purchase these, and also his nautical text-books for himself; but they should be sold to him at a reduced price, and if necessary, he should be allowed to pay for them by instalments. School hours. The hours of attendance on the day school should be, in the morning from nine to twelve, and in the afternoon from two until five in the summer, and until This book might also, with advantage, include a treatise on plane and spherical trigonometry. four in the winter. In the evening school, from six until nine. of the master. As the constant attendance of the master and the Hours of attendance two assistants on the day and evening schools would involve more labour than it would be reasonable to require from them; it may be arranged that two only should attend in the afternoon and the evening lessons, that teacher who is absent from the one, being present at the other. Taking into my view the class of persons for whose Fee of the day school education it is the intention of the Board of Trade, in establishing these schools, to provide, I recommend that the school fee be fixed at one guinea per quarter. school. The fee of the evening school should be the same Fee of the evening with that of the day school, viz., one guinea per quarter; but as many seamen's apprentices may be desirous to attend the school by the month, the fee may be charged at the rate of 6s. per month. No person, being actually in the sea-service, or having been so, should be admitted to the day school. master to be 120. The salary of each master should begin at 1207., and The salary of the increase every five years that he remains in the office by 107., until it becomes 2007. sum to be annually insure a retiring pen From this salary there should be deducted annually Out of this salary a a sum sufficient to secure to him, in a public Insurance deducted, sufficient to Office, a retiring pension of 1007. at the age of sixty-sion of 1007 at the age five, at which age he should be required to retire from of 5. the responsible charge of the school. The master to receive In addition to his salary the master should receive two thirds of the fees two-thirds of the fees of the evening school. of the evening school. prenticed pupil Each pupil-teacher should be apprenticed for five The salaries of apyears, and allowed a salary of 157. for the first year, to teachers. increase by 21. 10s. annually. receive, in addition to In addition to their salaries the two pupil-teachers The pupil-teachers to in each school should receive one-third of the proceeds their salaries, oneof the evening school, which sum should be equally divided between them. third of the fees of the evening school. protector of merprentices should be port where there is a chant seamen's ap appointed in every In every port where a school is established, it is expedient that some person should be appointed to whom applications for boys to be apprenticed might be made by the captains of ships, and who should watch school. over their interests when so apprenticed. men's apprentices ful supervision over If the person appointed to this office were an officer of The protector of seaHer Majesty's Navy on half-pay, selected with a special might exercise a usereference to his qualifications for it, he might exercise, the school. with great advantage, a supervision over the professional instruction given in the school, on which he should report, from time to time, to the Board of Trade. |