§ Clause 40 (School fund).
§ MR. GORDONsaid, he wished to suggest that the whole of the Parliamentary Grants and fees to schoolmasters should go to the schoolmasters themselves. That had been the invariable practice in Scotland hitherto.
§ THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, he thought the question as to the proper mode of remunerating the schoolmasters might be more conveniently and satisfactorily discussed on Clauses 50, 51, and 62. If it were the opinion of the Committee that the whole of the Parliamentary Grant, or of the fees, or of both, should go to the schoolmasters, he would make the provisions of the Bill conform to such opinion.
§ MR. M'LAGANsaid, that after the statement of the right hon. and learned Gentleman he should withdraw the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
§ Clause agreed to, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ Clause 41 (Power to impose rates).
§ THE LORD ADVOCATEmoved, at end of clause, to add the words—
And the school rate shall in all cases be levied and collected in the same manner as poor's assessment, and the laws applicable for the time to the imposition and collection and recovery of poor's assessment shall be applicable to the school rate.
§ He proposed those words on the suggestion of those who were practically acquainted with the assessment and collection of poor's assessment, and on the assurance that the Amendment would facilitate the collection of the rate.
§ MR. M'LARENsaid, he should like to know whether the residences which were exempt from poor rate would not be liable for school rate?
§ THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, that the school rate was directed to be imposed upon all tenants of the annual value of not less than £4.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ Clause 42 (Borrowing by school boards).
§ MR. GORDON, in moving, in page 16, line 39, the omission of the words "the school fund," said, that fund ought not to be pledged as a security for the raising of money. The fees out of which the fund partly arose would in almost all cases be payable to the masters, or be otherwise specially appropriated, and the pledging the Parliamentary Grant would likewise prejudice the right of the schoolmasters. Moreover, the English Act had been strictly followed in this case.
§ THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, he should be sorry if the Bill interfered as his hon. and learned Friend appeared to think this clause would, with the rights of teachers. He thought, however, that a reference to Clause 40 would satisfy his hon. and learned Friend that it would not. If the Parliamentary Grant or the school fees were specially appropriated to the teachers, no creditors would, of course, lend money on such security. Nothing should be wanting on his part to secure to the teachers whatever the House in its wisdom destined for them.
§ MR. COLLINSsaid, it ought to be made clear that the children's pence could not be made a security for a loan. The Parliamentary Grant to the schools could scarcely be considered a security, as it might cease any day; indeed, he thought no one would be so unwise as to lend money on so fluctuating a security.
§ MR. BOUVERIEsaid, the Parliamentary Grant could scarcely be considered a security, as it would fluctuate in amount, or might not be earned by a schoolmaster through incompetence, or Parliament might change its mind. He would suggest that the Amendment should be withdrawn, and the following words inserted:—"other than the Parliamentary Grant and school fees."
§ THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, there appeared to be some misconception on this subject. The school boards could only borrow in respect of the wants of the schools under their administration, and for that purpose they were authorized to pledge the income of their own schools. The language of the clause was precisely in conformity with that of the English Act, Clause 57, which enabled the school board to borrow for a term of years, not exceeding 50, on the security of the school funds and local rates. The whole of the Parliamentary Grant must go to the maintenance of the school, but it might be necessary to borrow a larger sum; and in doing so, he would take care that the rights of the schoolmasters were not interfered with.
§ MR. F. S. POWELLsaid, he would suggest that, as in the case of the English Act, the consent of the Education Department should be obtained in the case of raising funds under the clause.
§ THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, that as he could see no objection to such a condition, 1362 he should be perfectly willing to insert it.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ On the Motion of the LORD ADVOCATE, the words—"with the consent of the Scotch Education Department," were inserted after "they," in line 38.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ Clause 43 (Burgh school funds to be transferred to school boards).
§ Amendments made.
§ MR. DALGLISHmoved, in page 17, line 24, to leave out the words—
And the town council of every burgh shall at the time of Martinmas yearly pay to the school board thereof such sum as it has been the custom of such burgh prior to the passing of this Act to contribute to the burgh school out of the common good of the burgh, and the same shall be applied and administered by the said board in conformity with said custom.
§ THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, he was sorry to be under the necessity of opposing his hon. Friend's Amendment; but he really had no other option in the case under notice. The "common good," as the Committee were doubtless aware, consisted of property held by the magistrates as trustees for the community, to be administered for certain purposes, and one of those purposes was the education of the children of the community. Now, in some burghs, the trustees—the magistrates—had contributed with something approaching to liberality to the cause of education. In others they had contributed very little in that direction. Now, it had seemed to him that the most proper and reasonable way of dealing with this trust money in the present Bill was not to raise any question about the past, nor to leave it to the discretion of the magistrates in time to come—but to fix the future contributions at the same amount as had hitherto been so applied. It was not in the nature of a rate; it was the administration of trust property held for particular purposes, and he could not agree to give those contributions up.
§ MR. DALGLISHasked the right hon. and learned Gentleman to explain on what principle he gave up the sums paid by the heritors for the maintenance of schools, while he insisted on the contributions out of the burgh funds?
§ MR. COLLINSconsidered that the principle enunciated by the Lord Advocate was a sound one.
§ MR. M'LARENsaid, he thought that the burgh funds would be augmented generally by the alteration which had been moved by his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow (Mr. Dalglish). In the smaller burghs, whose funds had been mostly jobbed away, they would relieve themselves of the £50 or so which they now paid to the schoolmaster, and place it on the rates—and as to the large burghs, what they contributed to education at present was the merest trifle, apart from the endowments and special funds.
§ DR. LYON PLAYFAIRsaid, that the amount of money which burghs contributed to secondary education in Scotland was extremely trifling—amounting only to about £5,000 a-year—and, therefore, if the object of his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow (Mr. Dalglish) had been, by omitting these words, to supply a proper aid to burgh schools by rate, he would gladly have co-operated with him. But Clause 61 provided that the higher burgh schools of the kingdom should receive no aid from the school funds. If, therefore, they took away that small sum from the common good, they still more impoverished the burgh schools than at the present moment.
§ MR. ANDERSONsaid, it appeared to him that in this matter burghs and heritors must stand or fall together. The Bill would take away the management of the parish schools from the heritors, and in consideration of doing that, they had relieved them from their old payment. They were in like manner taking away the management of the burgh schools from the magistrates and town councils, and in consideration of so doing, they ought to relieve them likewise of the contribution they had hitherto paid out of the common good.
§ MR. KINNAIRDsaid, he entirely concurred in the view of his hon. Friend (Mr. Anderson).
§ THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, the question of relieving the heritors stood for discussion at a later stage. His hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow (Mr. Dalglish) asked him to state the distinction between the contributions to burgh schools out of the "common good" of burghs and the school rates paid by heritors. With respect to the burgh 1364 schools, many of them, according to the scheme of the Bill, were not to receive any support from rates or Parliamentary Grants. Take the case of Glasgow. Undoubtedly, there would be a very large quantity of schools there under the Bill, should it become law, to be supported by rates and Parliamentary Grants; but the Burgh School of Glasgow would not be one of them, for the Burgh School of Glasgow was not a rate-supported school—and no burgh school was at the present moment. In future, these burgh schools, which were of a class very much inferior to the Burgh School of Glasgow, would, like other elementary schools, be rate-supported, but were not so now; and the Burgh School of Glasgow, like the High School of Edinburgh and other burgh schools of a high class, would not be in the future more rate-supported than they were in the past. He should be glad if Parliament were disposed to do for Scotland what it had declined to do for England—namely, to allow a local tax to be imposed for supporting the higher class schools; but he confessed he was not hopeful in that matter, and he could not therefore consent by any provision in the Bill to forego in regard to the higher class schools which now existed the interest that they had in these funds, estates, and revenues which were conveyed to the Royal Burghs of Scotland by charters, with this as one of the trust purposes for which the conveyances were made. The rates imposed upon the heritors were taxes imposed upon the heritors of parishes for the purpose of maintaining rate schools. He trusted that his hon. Friend would perceive from this explanation the distinction between rate support, which consisted of taxes for supporting rate schools, and trust-money given for the support of schools which were not rate schools at all.
§ MR. M'LARENsaid, he should be sorry to be a party to depriving any school in Scotland of one shilling of the money it now received—he was disposed to increase their emoluments rather than diminish them; but he thought the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate had overlooked one thing, and that was, that in two-thirds of the burgh schools of Scotland the children began at the very beginning, and went through a course of the most elementary teaching.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
1365§ MR. GORDONsaid, they were all agreed that the benefits of higher class schools were very much required, and they would be happy to see assistance afforded by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; but after the expressions which fell from the right hon. Gentleman on a recent occasion, he feared they had little hope of obtaining aid in that quarter. Moreover, the question of a rate for the purpose seemed to be excluded under the Bill. The elementary schools would, of course, be supported by means of the rate; and as the contributions payable from the common good of the burghs were a fund applicable generally towards the support of higher schools, he thought it would be desirable that all contributions paid to the school boards out of the common good should be applied to the support of the higher schools. They would thus have, to a certain extent, assistance in setting up higher education in some of the schools. He proposed, in line 29, after "board," to insert these words, "for the purpose of promoting higher instruction."
§ MR. M'LARENsaid, it struck him that this was an extraordinary Amendment to put into the Bill. Its effect would be that the funds which were now given for the benefit of the rich and poor alike was to be given to those only who were educated in the higher subjects.
§ MR. GORDONsaid, that that was a misapprehension, for the higher education which was now provided in schools was given alike to the rich and poor.
§ MR. MILLERfeared that the effect would be in small towns to deprive the poorer classes of that which they at present enjoyed.
§ DR. LYON PLAYFAIRdid not think that the Amendment would abstract money from the poor, the object being to carry out what was peculiarly a characteristic of Scotch education—namely, that a higher class education was so provided as to be applicable to poor children.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ DR. LYON PLAYFAIR, in moving, in page 17, line 29, after "custom," the insertion of words to the effect that the town council in a burgh should, when required by the school board, provide funds as heretofore out of the common good for the maintaining and renewing the buildings of such burgh school in 1366 an efficient state, said, that it was not his intention to persevere with the Amendment; but he took that opportunity of asking the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate how the burgh schools were in future to be maintained and enlarged without the imposition of a rate, or some other means which did not appear on the face of the Bill?
§ THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, that if he rightly understood the question it was how the burgh schools should be kept in repair, and be enlarged as occasion might require. The burgh schools, according to the provisions of the Bill, were of two classes; they were the higher class burgh schools, which were separately provided for; and the burgh schools generally, which were provided for in the Bill. With respect to the latter class, they were not in a different position in respect to their maintenance and repair than any other public schools under the Bill. The rate-supported schools would be resorted to in order to maintain a sufficient number required by the population; while the higher class schools had already sufficient revenues to enable them to give a much higher class of education. In such cases, for instance, as that of the Glasgow Burgh School, it would be kept in repair out of its revenue; and if that revenue fell short, there would be no other source than that derived from endowments or from any funds which the liberality of the inhabitants of the district placed at its disposal. That remark would equally apply in the case of the High School at Edinburgh. In point of fact, they would stand upon their old footing; and while he should be sorry if it was proved that the liberality of the future inhabitants should not prove equal to such a charge—a calamity in no way foreshadowed by the conduct of the existing ones—he could not hold out any hope that they would receive contributions from the public money.
§ DR. LYON PLAYFAIRsaid, he had not suggested that any money should be asked from the public Exchequer, but when they came to Clause 61, dealing with the higher schools, he should propose that the districts should be allowed to rate themselves when they voluntarily desired it, for it was absurd to suppose that the endowments, which were of small amount, would suffice to maintain in repair and enlarge those schools. He 1367 would, therefore, withdraw his present Amendment, and raise the question again on Clause 61.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ DR. LYON PLAYFAIRmoved the insertion, in line 30, of the words "with the sanction of the Education Department," after "to time."
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ Clauses 44 to 49, inclusive, agreed to, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ Clause 50 (School fees).
§ MR. GORDONmoved, in page 19, line 23, after the word "schools," to insert the following words, "subject in case of complaint by any person having interest to an appeal to the Board of Education."
§ THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, he could not consent to the Board of Education being made a Court of Appeal in any case where parents might complain of the school fees.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. GORDON, in moving, in line 25, to leave out from "paid" to end of clause, and insert—
Payable to the principal schoolmaster or schoolmistress in charge of the school; but where there is more than one teacher subject to such division as may be made by the school board, with a right of appeal by anyone having interest, to the Board of Education; and the school board shall pay out of the school fund to each schoolmaster or schoolmistress an annual salary, to be fixed on the occasion of each appointment, of an amount (unless the Board of Education shall in any case otherwise determine) not less than fifty pounds nor more than one hundred pounds in the case of a schoolmaster in a burgh school, and not less than thirty-five pounds nor more than eighty pounds in the case of a school in a landward parish, and not less than twenty-five nor more than fifty pounds in the case of any schoolmistress. The schoolmaster or schoolmistress shall likewise be entitled to the interest or annual produce of any bequest or endowment for his or her behoof, and to any Parliamentary Grant which may be earned in respect of the school under his or her charge, under deduction of payments to pupil teachers, if any: Provided, That the salaries and scales of fees of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses appointed before the passing of this Act under the recited Acts, or any of them, shall not be reduced; and that the school board may, if they think fit, from time to time raise the salary of any schoolmaster or schoolmistress, so that the amount thereof shall not exceed the maximum here in before provided,1368 said, that in all statutes dealing with the salaries of Scotch schoolmasters a maximum and a minimum amount of remuneration had always been fixed. The Bill of 1869 contained a provision to the same effect, which was adopted by this House after full discussion, and it would probably be the more necessary on account of the transfer of the management from heritors who had often paid sums considerably in excess of their legal obligations to local Boards. The latter in some cases would no doubt be liberal, but in others there might be a desire to save the rates. He, therefore, proposed that the masters should receive, as hitherto, the Parliamentary Grant and the produce of any endowment, and should likewise have a salary of not less than £50 and not more than £100.
§ THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, he would at once admit that this was a very important question, involving as it did the liability of the people to pay rates to provide the salaries under discussion. A calculation had been made by which it had been shown that the cost would amount to nearly £400,000 a-year, a bonus which, if granted, would probably result in the schoolmasters of England and Ireland demanding the like liberality. Not only that, but the hon. and learned Gentleman could scarcely have calculated the amount which masters would receive in the shape of fees and Parliamentary Grants, especially in schools with from 300 to 1,000 children. If a master received £300 a-year from these sources, would his hon. and learned Friend still award him a statutory salary out of the rates? Such a course had never been dreamt of in England; and were the Scotch so rich and so indisposed to liberality, and even to justice, that it was to be applied to them? It was all very well to fix the minimum of £35 for rural parishes, where there was only one school, but the Amendment would apply to hundreds of schools. He would, moreover, remind the House that no Amendment that they could make would affect the amount of the fee, and it was proposed to be given in proportion to the efficiency of those who attended. He must also say that he could not approve of the Amendment, because it threw on the inhabitants of the district the expense of erecting and maintaining buildings out of the local rates. The matter 1369 really stood thus—by the Bill schools would be established wherever they were needed, and they must be of a certain class, and maintained up to a certain standard at least. Every school must have a certificated master, and his qualifications might be as much higher as the district pleased or required. The people of every district were thus encouraged to have the schools made as good as possible, for in proportion to their excellence would the Parliamentary Grant be distributed, and that was an encouragement to the ratepayers to equip the schools well, so as to entitle them to the receipt of Government aid. But it was for the managers to make their bargain with the teachers, and if they desired a higher education than was required by the Government Grant, they would have the right to demand a higher qualification. Every inducement was therefore offered to the school board districts to appoint well-qualified teachers, capable of giving the children a good education. In short, the people of Scotland desired to give their children a good education, and the Bill would give them all the necessary machinery for gratifying that desire; all the Government insisted on was that these qualifications should not descend below a certain point. He, therefore, thought there should be no interference with the bargains to be made by the boards and their teachers. Could not the teachers take care of themselves? Good teachers must be had, and good teachers would find their price; and if an efficient teacher were giving a good education in a school, and obtaining for it the largest amount of Parliamentary Grant that could be obtained, would it not be necessary to pay him high terms in order to retain him? The eyes of school boards, who would be pecuniarily interested in such matters, would be turned towards him, and he would be taken away if there were not sufficient inducement to him to remain. In short, the demand for his services when required would follow the natural operation of the law as regarded supply. The fact was, there was a field opened up to teachers by the Bill which had never existed in Scotland before; and why, then, should not they be left to make their own bargain, like the schoolmasters in England? The notion that they ought to have both the fees and the Parliamentary Grant proceeded 1370 upon a mistake, for what the Government said to the school boards was precisely what it said to the school managers. It encouraged them to provide and equip schools of the best description, and to employ schoolmasters, who would give a good education to the children by contributing money, in the shape of Parliamentary Grants, according to results. He did not see how it was possible to apply the fees and the Parliamentary Grant in the manner now proposed. There would be something like 300 schools to be provided in Glasgow alone. Now, the expense of providing a school for 300 children would be about £1,500—£5 a child being the ordinary estimate. A school to accommodate 1,000 children would cost £5,000. The schools, too, would have to be upheld, and the resort to the borrowing powers to raise money in order to provide school buildings would be very extensive. The money invested in ground and buildings would be of large amount, and part of the fees and the Parliamentary Grants would be required to enable the managers to meet the interest and pay off the debt, besides meeting the expense of the equipments and the staff. There would, therefore, no doubt, be a large amount of money to be borrowed on the security of the school fund, and was there to be no relief out of the Parliamentary Grant and the fees? He ventured to say that such a proposal was extravagant and almost ridiculous, and yet the Scotch schoolmasters had by their importunity induced Scotch Members to advocate the proposal, and had tried to make it appear that they were ill-used by the Bill, and so had obtained a large amount of unfounded sympathy. But he would ask not only Scotch, but also English and Irish Members, to consider that if Parliament consented to give Scotch schoolmasters all fees and all Imperial grants, and a fixed salary in addition, to be paid out of local taxation, how long it would be before the schoolmasters of England and Ireland would demand to be placed on the same footing? Why should they be dealt with differently? With what justice, with what sense of fair dealing, could they refuse to England and Ireland that which had been granted to Scotland? For those reasons, he strongly opposed the Amendment, and he did so in the belief that schoolmasters 1371 were, as regarded their remuneration, treated in the Bill justly and liberally.
§ DR. LYON PLAYFAIRsaid, he would recommend his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gordon) to withdraw his Amendment, because a portion of it was embraced in the Amendment to be moved by his hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. M'Lagan). He had no complaint to make against the speech of the right hon. and learned Lord, except that it was an answer by anticipation to the speeches which his hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and he meant to deliver on a subsequent Amendment.
§ MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEobserved, that the good education of Scotland hitherto was owing to the high qualifications of the teacher, and the liberal manner in which he had been treated. There was no point to which the people of Scotland attached such importance as the proper payment of the schoolmaster; but what the Lord Advocate wanted was cheap education.
§ MR. GORDONsaid, he would adopt the suggestion of the hon. Member for the University of Edinburgh (Dr. Playfair), and withdraw his Amendment in favour of that of the hon. Member for Linlithgow on Clause 52.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ DR. LYON PLAYFAIRmoved in page 19, line 27, after "and" to leave out to end of clause, and insert—
The schoolmaster, schoolmistress, and teachers of a school shall be entitled to receive from the school board the full amount of the fees received by the board in respect of such school, and, when there is more than one teacher, the said amount shall be divided and distributed among them as the school board shall determine.The Committee had already heard a speech against allowing schoolmasters to receive the fees. His Amendment was copied verbatim from a clause in the Bill introduced by the right hon. and learned Gentleman last year. There was, therefore, nothing shocking in the idea that fees should be given to schoolmasters, neither was there anything in the proposition to which the Government could or ought to offer objection. In fact, a clause giving fees to schoolmasters appeared in the Bill introduced by the Government in 1869. It was quite true that in the English Act there was no such clause, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman asked why Scotland 1372 should be treated differently from England. The simple answer was because Scotland was not England—because Scotland for centuries had had a system of national education, under which the fees were paid to the schoolmasters. It was the universal practice in Scotland for not only teachers, but the highest professors to depend chiefly upon fees. University Professors received an extremely small sum from endowments, their main reliance was on fees, and that system had an admirable effect, because it stimulated the Professors to activity. The main reliance also of teachers of schools was on fees, and that system stimulated the teachers enormously. His right hon. and learned Friend proposed, however, to hand over the fees to what he called the School Fund, which was to be applied according to the ideas of the school board. What was wanted was simply this—that the school board should make what bargain they chose with the schoolmaster. If he received a large amount in fees, he would receive a less salary; but by giving him an interest in all the fees he would have the greatest interest in keeping his school in a state of efficiency. The great objection which he entertained to the Bill was that it was an attempt to Anglicize Scotch education, and it was with a view to prevent that sad consummation that he entreated the Committee to follow in this instance the wise counsels which the Lord Advocate gave in 1871, and his predecessor in 1869.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 19, line 27, to leave out from the word "and" to the end of the clause, in order to add the words "the schoolmaster, schoolmistress, and teachers of a school shall be entitled to receive from the school board the full amount of the fees received by the board in respect of such school; and, when there is more than one teacher, the said amount shall be divided and distributed among them as the school board shall determine."—(Dr. Lyon Playfair.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ MAJOR WALKERbore his testimony to the immense advantage of retaining the present system of fees in Scotland. Speaking from his experience of a large agricultural district in Scotland, he believed that to do away with the interest which teachers had in the fees would be to inflict a serious blow on education, and reduce it to the dead level of mediocrity.
§ MR. ANDERSONsaid, that the proposal before the Committee did not carry out the intention of the hon. Gentleman, for there was nothing in the words of the Amendment to compel the school boards to give the fees. It was desirable that the schoolmaster should to some extent be paid by results, and therefore he would not compel the school boards to give the whole of the fees, but only a part.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that although he was anxious not to interfere with the Scotch system of education by means of English opinions, still he wished the Committee to bear in mind conditions which appeared to apply to Scotland as well as to England. In Scotland as well as in England they were imposing this duty upon every district—that the education of every child should be provided for. In Scotland they had the enormous advantage of that principle having been acknowledged centuries ago, whereas in England it was comparatively new. But still it was necessary to extend the principle over the whole of Scotland, so that in every parish the ratepayers would be responsible for the education of every child, however poor. When they imposed on the ratepayers that duty it seemed but common sense to leave them entirely unfettered both as to the men they were to employ and the mode in which they were to pay them—in short, to allow the matter to be regulated by the action of supply and demand. If the fees were to be given as now proposed, all the influence of the schoolmaster—and that was not slight—might be brought to bear in order to have high fees. ["No!"] Assuredly, if he was to have the fees, his interest would be to have them as high as possible. And, secondly, the schoolmaster might try to fill the school with children who were able to pay the high fees. But what was especially important in poor districts and in large towns was that the children of the poorest parents should be encouraged in every possible way to come to school.
§ MR. CARNEGIEsaid, he thought that the school boards would in most cases make arrangements that the schoolmasters should have the fees; but it would be better not to compel parishes which might be peculiarly situated.
§ MR. C. DALRYMPLEsaid, that although he should support the Amendment, 1374 yet he thought there was a twofold risk in the matter—that the school boards would not be of high quality, and lest they should starve the schoolmasters. Though at present the feeling in Scotland was very strong in favour of education, yet it was possible when the school boards found out their power they might try to cut down the income of the schoolmasters, and for that reason he hoped before the Bill passed through Committee they would be able to procure a somewhat larger provision for them.
§ THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, his hon. Friend the Member for the Univerity of Edinburgh was not right in stating that his Amendment was taken from the Government Bill of last year, for the fact was that it was not contained in that Bill. However, having since consulted some gentlemen of great experience upon the question, he had now come to the conclusion that a modified form of it would be very advantageous, for it was undoubtedly true that the Amendment proceeded upon the custom of Scotland in the parish schools, which was, that the schoolmaster should receive the fees. That, however, was not the most convenient arrangement, and he preferred to leave it to the option of boards and schoolmasters to stipulate that the latter might take their chance of the fees, so far as they went. There were many cases in which that arrangement might conveniently be made; but there were others in which it might not be expedient, for a master might prefer to have a fixed salary, and let the fees go into the school fund. There were cases, too, in which it would be quite wrong to compel a school board to hand over all the fees to a teacher. Was it not better to leave everything connected with emoluments open to arrangement between the parties? He regarded it rather as a matter of detail than one of vital importance, and would prefer that arrangements should be made according to the circumstances of each case and the district in which it arose.
§ SIR ROBERT ANSTRUTHERsaid, he hoped the right hon. and learned Lord would not depart from the great courtesy and kindness he had exhibited towards Scotch Members, and that he would adopt the course desired, for the opinion of the Scotch people was decidedly favourable to the Amendment, which was only to continue a system that had existed in Scotland for hundreds 1375 of years. It was not to the interest of a schoolmaster to have high fees and but few children in his school, and therefore the fears of the Vice President were groundless. The proposal, moreover, was, that a schoolmaster should have what he earned, and who else ought to have it? He submitted that the Government ought to accept the proposal.
§ SIR GRAHAM MONTGOMERYsaid, he believed there would be heart-burnings in many minds if a share of the fees was not given to the schoolmasters. He hoped, therefore, the Government would give way.
§ MR. M'LAGANsaid, that in the Amendment which he had put on the Paper he had copied the words of the Lord Advocate's Bill of last year. He thought the Government should yield, and spare the Committee the necessity for a division upon the point.
§ MR. M'LARENsaid, he would believe that Scotch Members were in favour of this proposal, when he saw the Division List, but not till then. He thought that to alter the Bill would be to injure it, and should therefore support the proposal of the Government, and trusted they would stick to it.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 121; Noes 108: Majority 13.
§ Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.
§ And it being now Seven of the clock, House suspended its Sitting.
§ House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.